Makey Makey Educators Guide

Project based learning engages students in the investigation and solutions of real-world problems. Makey Makey is a valuable tool that students can use to solve problems and demonstrate their solutions to problems.

Makey Makey is an invention kit for the 21st century. We believe that everyone is creative, inventive, and imaginative and that everyone can create a future that changes the world. 

With Makey Makey everyday objects are transformed into touchpads empowering students to interact with computers as creative tools. The computer becomes an extension of their creativity, fostering imaginative play and discovery. Screen time, so often the bane of parents and teachers, becomes play, discovery, and invention time.

“Makey Makey” is a play on words - students having the ability to Make their own Keyboards (“Ma-Key”). The mundane and boring keyboard is replaced by any object that conducts electricity - pie pans, Play-Doh, bananas, and even potted plants - the list goes on! When students create their own method of interfacing with the computer, barriers to learning and creating give way to a world of exploration that is on their terms. Whether they are coding on Scratch, playing Pacman or jamming with music software, interactive and genuine learning takes place because students are guided by their interests and passion.

Makey Makey is part of a creative and technological downshift in which very smart electronics are simplified to make the world manipulable by ordinary people in ways previously available only to developers. The heart of Makey Makey is its circuit board that connects to a computer via a USB cable. Building circuits that can be used like a joystick or a keyboard key allows users with no coding experience to use Makey Makey to learn, experiment, and invent.

The Makey Makey is used by K12 educators throughout the world to teach Engineering, Design Thinking, and Making. Teachers in virtually every subject area have successfully used the Makey Makey to enhance and deepen the learning experience in their classroom.