Calling all teachers, but specifically ELA
teachers! Have you heard of Makey-Makey
invention kits? I am new to Makey-Makey
as well, but I’ve found some great instructions from The Techie Teacher
and she gives a wonderful explanation of how these kits work in the classroom. After attending a professional development, a
few of my colleagues returned to school with a mission: to locate funds to
purchase Makey-Makey kits. My
administration bought 15 kits and tasked me with the job of helping classroom teachers
with Makey projects this year. As I’ve
been searching for ideas and help in tackling this project, The Techie Teacher, was instantly my new
BFF! Julie Smith blogs on many ed tech
topics, but in her post about Makey-Makey (Academic
Ways to Use Makey-Makey), she gives an in-depth overview of the kits,
lesson ideas for how to use them from introductory stages to
student-exploratory stages, and finally, some links to fun projects with
Makey-Makey in action.
You may be curious as to where you can take this, and I
have decided to begin with my ELA teachers.
Some Makey project ideas I have brainstormed with teachers are:
interactive posters, book blurbs, and biography research projects. We’ve also considered teaching students the
nature of the Makey-Makey control panel and showing them how it is similar to
game controllers. If students understand
this concept, then they could turn topics into games. What student doesn’t love a game, even if it
is on the topic of cause and effect? Of
course, this will require modeling from the classroom teacher and myself, but I
know that students will find engagement with projects like these instead of creating
paper graphic organizers or book reports.
Interactive
Posters
A colleague and I finished a project with students this
week! This was our first time working
with the kits and a computer-coding program, Scratch. The students
researched animals and used nonfiction books from the library and an SC Discus
source, Britannica Elementary. The students were asked to locate specific
information to avoid sharing everything they read. We asked students in each group to find
information on the animal’s body, movement, adaptations, habitat, and
diet. In this way, we linked ELA
(research skills) with Science (the animal study). First, the students used their sources to
locate information. They recorded notes
along the way. After they found the
information they wanted to use, they created a poster with limited text. It was mostly pictures except the part where
we labeled the posters to give the students guidance. We then introduced them to Scratch (super awesome coding site—your students will
surprise you with how quickly they catch on) and recorded them reading
their research pieces. Once all of the
audio pieces were recorded, we learned how to code (connect space bar with
animal diet audio recording, connect right arrow with animal adaptation
recording, etc.). We attached conductive
material (aluminum foil) to the poster elements and connected the Makey-Makey
wires to each part of the poster.
Students were then ready to present their research. They invited other students from other
classrooms to come and try out their posters.
As students tapped the aluminum foil points, others were amazed at the “talking
posters” the students created. It was a
fun project and now that I know how to use the kits and the computer program, Scratch, I look forward to working with
others in my building to create interactive presentations. The sky is really the limit for
Makey-Makey. I can see story element
posters, book blurbs in the library (my idea is to connect a laptop/Scratch and Makey-Makey to actual books so
that when students tap a book they will hear about it from another student who
has already read it), and biography briefs (like news commercials to highlight
famous people).
My first project was with a third grade class because I
have a great relationship with the teacher and class. I felt like they would catch on quickly and
really, the results were wonderful. Of
course there were hiccups along the way (you really need a silent place to
record and the wires are sensitive, so conductors need to be spaced out), but I
would say our first collaboration with Makey-Makey and Scratch went smoothly. Why
am I advocating for these tools with such little experience? The students can tell you every part of their
research (and other student projects) from memory and are BEGGING to work on another
project. Other students who visited the
classroom to interact with the “talking posters” have already asked their
teachers when they will get to work on projects like this one. The integration of Makey-Makey and Scratch took us away from the typical
reports and graphic organizers. Lastly,
I think teachers would benefit from using tools like these because sometimes ELA
can be viewed as boring. Let the
students create a product they have most of the ownership of and it won’t be as
boring!
We pushed ourselves to learn about two new tools and
alternative products to show learning.
It took a lot of planning and work, but the end product was worth it! I am looking forward to leading in my school
as we integrate more technology (Johnson, 2012).
Here are the proud Penguin researchers!
Resources:
Johnston, M. P. (2012). School librarians
as technology integration leaders: Enablers and barriers to leadership
enactment. School Library Research, 15, 1–33.
Smith,
J. (2017, June 2). Academic ways to use
the makey-makey in the classroom. [Blog post]. Retrieve from https://www.thetechieteacher.net/2017/06/academic-ways-to-use-makey-makey-in.html
Audrey,
ReplyDeleteI love that you had a chance to try this out with a group of kids. It made your post so compelling and interesting. I also really appreciate the idea of integrating basic programming into a lesson on penguin anatomy to create such a memorable lesson for the students. Exciting stuff!