Teaching with App Maker
For computer science and technology teachers, co-op leaders and parents. One period to turn a starter into an app of their own. A second to give it a number and a rule, read the code, and let someone else try it.
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 Classroom- About these notes
- Two periods
- What students get wrong, and where the app answers it
- The seven starters
- What an app can do
- What the app leaves out, on purpose or for now
- Sharing and safety
- On a real phone, and taking it further
- Standards
About these notes
App Maker is a drawn phone and a box of parts. A student puts words, buttons, pictures and other parts on the phone, adds screens, and tells each button where to go. Try it turns the drawing into the working app. Later they add numbers the app remembers, rules that read as sentences, sounds and timers, and they can read the code App Maker wrote from what they built.
There is no worksheet, answer key or teacher setup in the app yet. These notes give the questions to ask instead.
The app is new and marked Alpha on the site. Parts of it may change.
Two periods
Period 1: an app is screens, and buttons that go between them.
- Five minutes: everyone clicks Button, then under Then go to clicks + A new screen, then presses Try it and taps the button. That is a two screen app.
- Open Starters and pick Quiz. Press Try it and play it both ways, right and wrong. Press Keep designing and click each card under the phone to see the four screens.
- Make it theirs: change the question and the three answers, then the colors (click an empty part of the phone and pick a set under The whole app). The answer buttons already go to Right! and Not that one.
- Add a second question with Ready-made, then Question, and point the Play again button at it.
- Last five minutes: swap seats and try a neighbor's quiz.
Period 2: an app can remember, and decide.
- Open Starters and pick Tap counter. Press Try it, tap to 20, press Again. Notice Wins went up.
- Keep designing, and click the Tap button. Read its panel aloud as three sentences: when tapped, first add 1 to taps and play Pop; then go to Nowhere; but if taps is at least 20, go to You did it.
- Change 20 to 5 and try it again. Then press See the code and find the 5.
- Their own: add a score to the quiz from Period 1. Click an empty part of the phone, add a number called score, make the right answer's button add 1 to it, and put {score} in some words on the last screen.
- If phones are allowed and the account may share: Put it on a phone, Make my link, and hand the phone to someone who has not seen the app.
What students get wrong, and where the app answers it
| Students often think | Where the app answers it |
|---|---|
| An app is one picture that changes | The cards under the phone. Every screen is its own card, and a button has to be told which one to go to. |
| The app knows what I meant | Try it. A button with Then go to: Nowhere does nothing, however obvious the intent was. |
| A button is a picture you tap | The button's panel. A button is the place where the app's steps live: change a number, play a sound, go somewhere. |
| The score is on the screen | Numbers the app remembers, with nothing picked. The number exists whether or not any words show it. {score} in some words is only a window onto it. |
| It checks the score all the time | But if, on a button. The check happens when that button is tapped, after its steps, and at no other time. |
| Code is something else, somewhere else | See the code with a button picked. The highlighted lines are the same three sentences. |
| If it works for me it works | A link on someone else's phone, or a neighbor in the seat. They tap things the maker never did. |
| The app remembers everything | The chip beside each number: Starts again each time, or Kept on the phone. Close the app and open it to see the difference. |
One to watch for: students put {score} in words before making a number called score, and see the braces on the phone. That is the app saying it knows no number by that name.
The seven starters
| Starter | What is in it | What it is good for |
|---|---|---|
| Quiz | Four screens: a title, one question with three answers, Right! and Not that one | Screens and buttons. The first app to change. |
| About me | A page about a person, with a picture, words and a list | Layout and looks. It asks for a nickname, not a real name, because a published app is public. |
| Choose your path | A short cave story where each choice goes to a different screen | Branching. Students draw the map of screens before they build their own. |
| Club guide | A home screen, a list of rules and a form | Lists, switches and Type-in boxes. Nothing typed in the form is sent anywhere, and the screen says so. |
| Tap counter | A number that counts taps, a rule at 20, a second number that counts wins, two sounds | Variables and a conditional in the smallest possible app. |
| Dice | One button that rolls 1 to 6 into a number | Chance. Change it to 1 to 20, or add a rule for rolling a 6. |
| Hello you | A Type-in box named name, and words that say Hello, {name}! when a button shows them | Input, and showing and hiding a part. |
A starter replaces what is on the phone. Undo brings the student's own app back.
What an app can do
| In the app | What it is | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Then go to | Navigation: a button goes to a screen, or back one screen | A button's panel |
| Numbers the app remembers | Variables, numbers only, with a starting value | The panel with nothing picked |
| Change a number | Add, take away, or set to a value, when a button is tapped | A button's steps |
| Roll a number | A whole number picked by chance between two values, both possible | A button's steps |
| But if | One condition per button: when a number reaches a mark, go to a different screen | A button's panel |
| Play a sound | One of eight short sounds | A button's steps |
| Show or hide a part | A button shows, hides or flips another part on its screen; any part can start hidden | A button's steps, and the bottom of any part's panel |
| A timer | After some seconds a screen goes to another by itself; {time} shows the seconds left | The panel with nothing picked |
| A named Type-in box | Words elsewhere show what was typed, as it is typed | The Type-in box's panel |
A button holds up to four steps. They run from the top, then the But if is checked, then the button goes where it goes.
What the app leaves out, on purpose or for now
- No loops. Nothing repeats by itself except a timer moving to the next screen.
- No deciding by what was typed. A quiz answer is a button, not a typed word.
- No math with typed numbers, and no comparing two numbers with each other. A condition compares one number with a fixed value.
- No lists that grow, and no saving what a person typed.
- Students read the code and cannot edit it.
- An app cannot reach the internet, open other sites, or ask for a password. That is a safety fence, not a missing feature.
When a student asks for one of these, that is the moment to say what it is called. Wanting a loop is the best introduction to loops.
Sharing and safety
- A published app is a public link. Anyone who has the link can open it. App Maker does not list published apps anywhere.
- Only an account that is allowed to share a project by link can make one. A student in a class set to share inside the class only is told so, and gets no link. They can still build, try and save.
- The words in an app pass the platform's text filter when the project is saved and again when the link is made. The page behind the link is built by the site from the saved project.
- A strip at the bottom of a published app says it was made by a student on this site. It shows for a few seconds when the app opens.
- The link stops working when the student takes it down, or when the project goes in the trash. A phone that already kept the app may still open its saved copy.
- There is no Report button on a published app yet.
- Ask students not to put a real full name, a school name or a photo of a person in an app they publish. The About me starter asks for a nickname for this reason.
On a real phone, and taking it further
From the link, the app opens with nothing around it. On an iPhone, open the link in Safari, press Share (it may be under the three dots), then Add to Home Screen. On an Android phone, press the three dots in Chrome, then Install app or Add to Home screen. After that it has its own icon and name and opens with no signal.
Download the project saves the app as a folder: the whole app in one file that opens in any browser, and a README with steps for making an Android or iPhone project using free tools. Be plain with students about what this is. An Android build needs a Windows, Mac or Linux computer and an iPhone build needs a Mac; a school Chromebook can do neither. Putting an app in a store needs an adult's account and a fee, and Apple often turns away small apps. Nobody on our side has yet built one of these projects all the way to an installed app, so try it yourself before promising it to a class.
Standards
- CSTA 2017 1B-AP-09 (grades 3 to 5): create programs that use variables to store and modify data. The numbers an app remembers.
- CSTA 2017 1B-AP-10 (grades 3 to 5): create programs that include sequences, events, loops, and conditionals. App Maker covers sequences, events and conditionals. It has no loops.
- CSTA 2017 2-AP-15 (grades 6 to 8), on seeking and using feedback from team members and users to refine a solution: the user test, by swapped seats or a link.
- CSTA 2017 2-AP-17 (grades 6 to 8), on testing and refining programs systematically: Try it, and a written list of what to tap and what should happen.
- CSTA 2017 2-AP-11 (grades 6 to 8), on clearly named variables, in part: the variables are numbers only.
- CSTA 2017 3A-AP-16 (grades 9 and 10), on artifacts that use events to initiate instructions.
These are the 2017 codes, which the lesson plans use. App Maker does not meet 2-AP-12, which asks for nested loops and compound conditionals.
The 2026 CSTA PK-12 standards, published July 2026, use new identifiers and band grades 9 to 12 together:
- MS-ALG-PS-01 (grades 6 to 8), on an algorithm with variables of more than one type, in part: its examples include tracking a score, storing a name and responding to user input. App Maker has numbers and what was typed, and no true or false values.
- MS-PRO-RD-17 (grades 6 to 8), on the roles of selection and variables in a segment of code, in part: See the code shows a button's steps and its But if as code. App Maker has no iteration.
- MS-PRO-TR-19 (grades 6 to 8), on systematic strategies to test, refine and document changes: Try it, and a written list of what to tap and what should happen.
- MS-PRO-TR-20 (grades 6 to 8), on refining a computing technology based on user feedback: the user test.
- HS-ALG-IM-09 (grades 9 to 12), on designing a computing technology with human-centered design principles, in part: the user test, where someone else uses the app and the maker changes it for them.
- HS-PRO-TR-20 (grades 9 to 12), on refining a computing technology based on user feedback and testing results.
In the 2026 standards, events are named only in the elementary bands. App Maker does not meet MS-PRO-VD-16 or HS-PRO-VD-16, which ask for several data types or data structures.
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Page last reviewed November 2026.
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