Soundtrap + Makey Makey


Learning Target OR Standards & Connections
Empowered Learner ISTE Student Standard 1c: Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways. Empowered Learner ISTE Student Standard 1d: Students understand the fundamental concepts of technology operations, demonstrate the ability to choose, use and troubleshoot current technologies, and are able to transfer their knowledge to explore emerging technologies.
Essential Outcomes(s)	Level(s)
Students will… use digital tools, Soundtrap and Makey Makey, for a creative project. They will compile and share a variety of composed music and/or beats as well as reflect on their learning process.	Adaptable to all levels
Activity/Project
What you’ll need: Your learners will need a device, access to Soundtrap and a Makey Makey. It is recommended to have the teacher’s screen projected for the introduction and wrap-up of this lesson. Environment: The potential environment for this lesson is very flexible. A music teacher could use this lesson while introducing Soundtrap and/or Makey Makey. This is an opportunity to blur the lines between subjects while embedding the Arts into more technical and core subject matter. This lesson could be adapted to all ages and abilities but is designed predominately for elementary and middle school with an emphasis on differentiation (meet the student where they are). Anyone and everyone can participate and the complexity of the end result is quite unpredictable! Activity Review necessary information from past lesson(s). Possible prompts for class discussion: What did we do last time? What do you wish we had had a chance to do? Did you think of any questions after the lesson that you want to ask? What was your favorite part of the last lesson? Introduce any key vocabulary that you need to teach. Activity: Using the Makey Makey connectors and the Soundtrap studio, the class will create their own song or beat. The teacher will build one in front of the class and then break them into groups or individuals to complete their own compositions. Time for the students to rock it! Share, showcase & reflect Share – Mini “concert” in class with each group sharing their compositions with the projector at the front of the room. Showcase – Post a couple of examples on the school’s social media spaces. Reflect – Ask students to reflect on their experience: Do you think it is easier to add more loops to a project or change the number of times we loop? Would your answer be the same if we wanted to loop 100 times? Could we use these same loops with different songs? What might that sound and look like? What was your favorite part about that activity?
Extended Learning
Grouping and assignment specifications are two main ways you can differentiate the activity for various learning styles/speeds and ensure inclusivity for all. If one student works better solo, let them rock it on their own. If you have two high flyers, let them work through this activity quickly and perhaps jump ahead to the next lesson using Scratch!

The author of this is Meredith Allen. Prior to joining the Soundtrap team, Meredith served as an Instructional Technology Consultant at Prairie Lakes Area Education Agency in Iowa. Preceding her consulting, Meredith taught instrumental music, K-7 technology and facilitated a district’s Virtual Reality Education Pathfinders program. She also served on their District Leadership Team, served as the district’s Technology Integrationist, and assisted with the implementation of the district’s 1:1 computing initiative. Meredith has a Master’s of Science in Technology for Education and Training and participated in the 2016 Iowa cohort of the national Teacher Leadership Initiative.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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