App Maker
Students use apps all day and almost none of them have made one. App Maker starts with an empty phone in the middle of the screen. A student puts a button on it, adds a second screen, and joins the two. Then they press Try it, and the phone on the page is their app, working. From there they add a score, a rule, a sound and a timer, read the code that App Maker wrote for them, and open the app on a real phone from a link.
Using this with a class? Make a free class and add your students yourself: each gets a username and password, with no email or Google account needed. Or give them one join code. Using Google Classroom? Post the link there; with a free class, the link also puts each student in your class, so you see their work. mytekDev is also available from the Google Workspace Marketplace, so your school's Google admin can install it for everyone.A first lesson: One period: open the Quiz starter, change it into a quiz of your own, and try it. A second period: add a number and a rule (a score that sends the player to a You win screen), read the rule in See the code, and trade apps with a partner to test them.
Set up a free class Share to Google ClassroomWhat a student actually does
There is a phone in the middle of the page and seven parts on the left: Words, Button, Picture, Type-in box, List, Shape and Switch. Clicking a part puts it on the phone, and dragging puts it anywhere. Clicking a part on the phone opens its choices on the right: its words, color, size and shape. Pink lines appear when it lines up with something. The cards under the phone are the app's screens, and a button can be told which screen to go to. A short guide at the top of the panel walks through the first minute.
Try it turns the phone on the page into the working app. The student taps through it the way a person would, finds what is wrong, and presses Keep designing to fix it. Seven starters are finished small apps to open and change: a quiz, an About me page, a story with choices, a club guide, a tap counter, a dice roller, and an app that says hello by name. Six ready-made screens add a title page, a question, a list, a card, a form or a You win screen with the parts already in place.
Then the app starts to do things. It can remember numbers, such as a score, and show one in any words by putting its name in curly brackets. A button reads as sentences: when tapped, first add 1 to score and play a sound, then go to a screen, but if score is at least 10 go to You win. A button can also roll a number by chance, or show and hide another part. A screen can have a timer that moves on by itself. A Type-in box can be given a name, and other words can show what was typed. See the code shows the JavaScript, HTML and CSS that App Maker wrote from all of this.
With a free account, Put it on a phone makes a link and a square code to scan. The app opens on a real phone with nothing around it, can be kept on the home screen, and works with no signal after that. When the student updates the link, phones that have the app open change by themselves in a few seconds. Download the project saves the whole app as a folder that runs without the site, with steps for turning it into an Android or iPhone app on a computer.
See the code, with the Tap button picked. The highlighted lines are that button's rule, written by App Maker from the three sentences in the panel: add 1 to taps, play Pop, and if taps is at least 20 go to You did it. The other two tabs show the HTML for what is on each screen and the CSS for how it looks. The code can be read and copied, not edited.
The Quiz starter. The cards under the phone are the app's four screens, and the small tag on the Start button says where it goes. Each answer button on Question 1 goes to Right! or to Not that one.
What they are learning while they work
Nothing here is presented as a lesson. This is what the activity is made of.
| What the student does | What it is |
|---|---|
| Puts a button on the phone and chooses Then go to: Question 1 | An event. Nothing happens in an app until something sets it off. A tap is an event, and the button's panel is the list of what the app does when it happens. |
| Adds a number called score, and a button step that adds 1 to it | A variable. A named place where the app keeps a value that changes. Putting {score} in some words shows it, and the words change the moment the number does. |
| Adds But if score is at least 10, go to You win | A conditional. The app checks something and does one of two things. The same tap goes nowhere nine times and to a new screen on the tenth. |
| Gives a button three steps and reads them top to bottom | A sequence. Steps run in order. Adding 1 and then checking for 10 is not the same as checking first. |
| Presses Try it, finds a button that goes to the wrong screen, and fixes it | Testing and debugging. The app does what it was told, which is not always what was meant. Finding the difference is most of the work. |
| Opens See the code with a button picked | Code as a description of behavior. The highlighted lines say the same thing as the sentences in the panel. A student who built the rule can read the function that runs it. |
| Hands a phone with their app on it to someone else and watches | Designing for a user. The maker knows where to tap. Someone else does not. What confuses them is what the next version fixes. |
| Turns a number from Starts again each time to Kept on the phone | Data that lasts. Some values are gone when the app closes and some are stored on the device. The app has to be told which is which. |
How to tell whether it landed
Ask, and let them show you. A student who has understood it can answer these without help.
- What happens in your app when nobody taps anything? Why?
- Show me a number your app remembers. Which button changes it, and where does it show?
- Your button goes to a different screen once the score is high enough. Which line in See the code decides that?
- What is the difference between a number that starts again each time and one that is kept on the phone?
- Someone else tried your app. What did they do that you did not expect, and what did you change?
- Name one thing you wanted your app to do that App Maker cannot do yet.
Use it in your subject
Not a technology class? Then the app is how students show what they learned in your unit. More projects for every subject.
Computer science, grades 3 to 5
CSTA 2017 1B-AP-09: create programs that use variables to store and modify data. The numbers an app remembers are these. 1B-AP-10: create programs that include sequences, events, loops, and conditionals. App Maker covers the sequences, the events and the conditionals. It has no loops.
Computer science, grades 6 to 8
CSTA 2017 2-AP-15, which asks students to seek and use feedback from team members and users to refine a solution, and 2-AP-17, which asks them to test and refine programs systematically. A link that someone else opens on their own phone is a user test. 2-AP-11, clearly named variables, is met in part: the app's variables are numbers only.
Computer science, grades 9 and 10
CSTA 2017 3A-AP-16, which asks students to design and develop artifacts that use events to initiate instructions. Older students can also compare the sentences in the panel with the generated JavaScript, and read how one page of HTML, CSS and script becomes an installable app.
What this page does not claim
The codes above are from the 2017 CSTA standards. CSTA published a revision in 2026 and this page has not been mapped to it yet. App Maker does not teach loops, lists or functions the student writes, so it claims no standard that needs them, including 2-AP-12. Students read the code and cannot edit it, so it is not a text programming course. And it does not publish to the App Store or Google Play: it makes a link, and a project folder a family can take further.
Practical notes
- AgesGrades 5 to 10. The first period needs no reading beyond the labels. Numbers and rules suit grade 6 and up. Reading the generated code suits grades 8 to 10.
- TimeOne period to change a starter into an app of their own and try it. A second for a number, a rule and a user test.
- EquipmentA computer or Chromebook with a modern browser. Nothing to install. A phone is optional: the app runs on the drawn phone on the page. Sounds need speakers or headphones.
- CostFree. The app has no paid tier.
- PrepAbout fifteen minutes: open the Tap counter starter, press Try it and tap to 20, click the Tap button to read its rule, and open See the code.
- In a groupA link to a published app is public: anyone who has it can open it. Students in a class set to share inside the class only, and accounts that may not share by link, are told so and get no link. They can still build, try and save.
For co-ops, microschools, and classrooms
Start everyone from the same starter and the room can compare what each student changed. For a user test without phones, students swap seats and press Try it on each other's apps. Where phones are allowed, one student publishes and the others scan the square code from the screen. The app on the phone follows the editor: when the maker presses Update, open copies reload within a few seconds, so a fix can be tested by the same person a minute later. With mixed ages, the younger ones can stop at screens and buttons and the older ones go on to numbers, rules and the code.
Common questions
Is it free?
Yes. App Maker has no paid tier, and it can be tried right on this page without an account. Saving an app and making a link for a phone need a free account.
Is it a real app?
It is a real web app: one page of HTML, CSS and JavaScript that App Maker writes. From its link it opens full screen on a phone, can be kept on the home screen with its own icon and name, and works with no signal once it has been opened. It is not an app from the App Store or Google Play.
Can students put their app in the App Store or on Google Play?
Not from App Maker, and it does not promise that. Download the project gives the app as a folder with steps for making an Android or iPhone project on a computer with free tools. An Android build needs a Windows, Mac or Linux computer, and an iPhone build needs a Mac. Neither works on a Chromebook. The stores need an adult's account, they charge a fee, and Apple often turns away small apps. We have checked that the tools create both projects from the folder. We have not yet built one all the way to an installed app.
Do students write code?
No. They build rules as sentences, and App Maker writes the code. See the code shows it, with the picked button's rule highlighted, so they can read what they made. It cannot be edited there.
What can an app not do?
It cannot decide by what was typed in a box, do math with typed numbers, compare two numbers with each other, repeat steps in a loop, or keep a list that grows. A button has one But if. The app says so in How it works.
Who can see a published app?
Anyone with the link. App Maker does not list published apps anywhere. The words in an app go through the same text filter as the rest of the platform when it is saved and when the link is made, and the page is built by the site from the saved project. The link stops working when the student takes it down or puts the project in the trash. A strip at the bottom says the app was made by a student on this site, for a few seconds when it opens.
Does an app collect anything?
No. An app has boxes to type in, but nothing typed is sent anywhere, there is no password box, and an app cannot reach other sites. A number marked Kept on the phone is stored on that phone only.
Can students use their own pictures?
Yes, pictures from their own files on the site, which go through the platform's checks. There are also 36 simple drawn pictures built in.
Still have a question? Ask us, and a person will write back.
Where to go next
Badge kits and learning kits
Step-by-step projects in App Maker that end with a certificate: for a scout badge, or for homeschool families and classes.
- Make a quiz that keeps score: Learning kit badge, or the learning kit for grades 5-8
Lesson plans
4 ready-to-teach class periods with a teacher plan, a student worksheet, an exit ticket with answers, and the standards it meets.
Start with App Maker
Trying it costs nothing and takes about five minutes. An account is what makes the work last.
App Maker is one of the making apps on the platform. The phone on the page runs the same page of code the link serves, so what a student tries is what a phone gets. An independent accuracy review checked the help text, the starters and the steps in the downloaded project against sources.
Page last reviewed November 2026.
Google, Google Classroom and Chromebook are trademarks of Google LLC.