Using QR Codes in the Classroom

One of the fundamental advantages that tablets and mobile devices have over computers is their portability, but the least utilized, I think is the presence of a camera. Today, I want to show you some of the fun ways that I use Quick Reader codes, or QRs, in my classroom.

QRs are those barcode/crossword puzzle looking squares that you see on packages and advertisements. When they are “scanned” with a mobile device and the right app it links you to the website or text of your choice.

1. Typing in web addresses is difficult, especially on a mobile device with a keyboard for letters and a different one for numbers and symbols. With the QR it is as simple as Open App, Snap QR and, in the case of an iPad, open the webpage in Safari. Quick, simple and it avoids the frustration of missing a number or letter and ending up at the dreaded “error” page.
2. Use them to assign seats: This takes a bit of time, but it is a fun way for students to become proficient at using a QR scanner. Create a text QR at http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ for each students name. Print each QR off and place it at the seat you would like them to occupy. Then give each student a mobile device and have them find their seat. It works better if students are not allowed to talk, otherwise,  in their excitement, they will reveal seat locations.
3. Check Your Answers: Some classes, especially math, like to have students complete an assignment and then check their answers. Posting the answers in the classroom or putting them on a piece of paper works, but it is too easy to just glance at it. If you have your answers in a word document, copy and paste them into the text section of the QR generator and post the QR on the assignment or on the board. When the student thinks that he or she is done, they can grab a mobile device and snap the QR. This is also helpful for parents because it can help them reverse engineer the problems if they’re a little rusty. Another variation, would be to post the answers on a class blog or website and put the QR and link on the assignment. That way computers and mobile devices can be used.
4. Quick Assessment: Let’s say I wanted to find out if my students could identify the subject in a sentence. I would put a sentence on the board, like “I saw elephants in Africa.” Typically, students gravitate towards nouns when they’re trying to figure out the subject. I would place a QR under “I, elephants and Africa.” What you do next is up to you. One option would be to have the “I” QR link to a page that says, “you’re correct,” but this is also an opportunity for targeted instruction. Link the incorrect answers to a page on identifying subjects or with additional practice. Send the correct answers to a page that works on predicates or some other worthwhile activity. If the page(s) you forward students to is/are on your blog, you could use traffic data to determine the classes’ overall performance. Just make sure that students are answering the questions honestly and not comparing the QRs to find the odd-one-out. 
5. Useful Feedback: This technique isn’t much different from the one listed above, but it is very easy to integrate into your classroom. If you are correcting, or even just browsing through your students’ work you can paperclip or staple a QR to their work. This QR might send them to a text that says “Congratulations,” but what I like to do is link the QR to a page that will help them do better on the next assignment or activity. For instance, if the assignment was fractions and a student obviously had trouble with finding common denominators, I would generate a QR that takes the student to a quick tutorial on finding common denominators and maybe a Google Form that will allow me to see if the additional activity made a difference.
6. CLASS BLOG: Print out some QR Codes and slip them in with report cards. It is a great way to promote your class blog, especially because the QR is still kind of novel.

Sometimes these techniques may come across as being needlessly technological. Why don’t I just put a page number from the book at the top of their assignment? The answer, for me anyway, is that this is a lot faster and more convenient for me. Furthermore, students seem to be more comfortable with “digital” personalized instruction, whereas singling out students to work on a particular issue seems to be a little less popular, and let's face it, you can't get to every student every time.

If you do something awesome with QRs, please share!

Students, Technology and Boundaries

   

People are often skeptical of technology use in the classroom, especially when their children/grandchildren/neighbor kids seem to use technology for music videos and computer games. Often people see the introduction of technology into the classroom as simply an excuse for kids to play games. I use very few games in my room, but I do try to make the technology use fun. I frequently use project-based learning in my language arts class, and did much the same thing when I taught science and social studies. For a successful project, students need the freedom to explore, ask questions, seek answers and create something of value. These opportunities to explore are also a vital part of developing digital literacy skills; students need to experiment with the best way to find information, organize ideas, evaluate conflicting ideas and create new ideas.

Take a look at Bloom’s Taxonomy and you will see that the lowest level learning, remember and understand, takes place on a path. The teacher decides that all students will go from point A to point B and when they get there everybody will know or understand what a verb is. Along the way the teacher will help some students who are struggling and answer some questions, but there is a very linear, static quality to the experience. Too often I see technology being used the same way, and sometimes I am the perpetrator. Telling students to use World Factbook to put together a paper on the country of their choice is pointless. Wolfram-Alpha or Siri can answer just about any question that will be answered by that paper. Learning to research a paper is a valuable skill, but telling them to use only one source would be the equivalent of putting Lewis and Clark on a leash and telling them to explore the frontier.

Right now my students are working on business plans and one of the project requirements is that they consider competition and demographic data in choosing a location. So, if they’re going to start a miniature golf course, they better spend some time thinking about who uses a mini-golf course and make sure they put it someplace where it will get business. I didn’t tell them to use this website or that website, and a lot of them did end up using the same website, but that is fine. They are learning to explore and complete tasks on their own. I believe this is the right thing to do because their future boss is not going to tell them to use Microsoft Word to type up a 200 word, 12-point, Arial font expense report and pull the average mileage costs from the AAA. No, their boss will tell them that they want a brief expense report and it will be up to them to figure out how to get that done. 

Preparing students for the Digital Age means tapping into human characteristics that can’t be mimicked by computer programming, among these is creative problem solving. I liken a good project to a playground, there are rules and established boundaries, but instead of the objective being “fun,” it is “business plan.” Unlike the hike, students are free to move about the area as they wish and each student has their own objectives. Along the way, they may decide to pair up with somebody or share a success with others, but their final product is the result of their creativity and effort. There is nothing wrong with the entire class using World Factbook, but I want them to find it on their own or through teamwork. My role in all of this is to make sure that students are not crossing the fence or trying to grab the spinning merry-go-round with their teeth. In short, I’m not leading a hike, just supervising the playground.

 

Of course, just like the playground, every now and then students will do something they shouldn’t. Usually it is something harmless, but completely unrelated to their task, like a video of a sleepy bear or a game. Still, it is off task and there aren’t enough hours in the school day or devices in the building for students to spend time doing something they shouldn’t be. I do give the students a chance to defend their actions, but since I have a clipboard with the students’ project topics, they are usually very honest and readily admit when they were knowingly off-task.

They know exactly what comes next and sometimes start even before I get over to them. They close down the device, put it away and grab the “no tech” alternative. If it is a research paper, that might be a book. If we are working on verbs, then it might be a worksheet. Whatever the activity or assignment might be, I always have a “no-tech” alternative, my students know this and some even choose it over the “tech” version. Remember that both activities need to achieve the same learning objective.

This works very well for me because my overall classroom management strategy has always relied upon having engaging activities that students want to do. Of course, when it comes to the activities that include technology I’m always a bit worried that students will view paper and pencils as a punishment, which is not good for anybody, especially that student.

For this reason I make it very clear that the assignment choice is theirs, unless they start making bad decisions. Then it is my responsibility to provide them with a good environment for learning, and that means removing the device.  My evidence that they understand this lies in the fact that some frequent off-task offenders will choose the low-tech option right away and have even thanked me for the option. It is rare, but it does happen. 

Technology is going to be a part of students' lives, and it is full of distractions and improvements for learning. Teachers have always been asked to reach higher while still keeping their students safe and ensuring that they are learning. This is how I do it, but I know there are other great ideas out there.

Please share your ideas, comments and questions because everybody will benefit!

Embrace Technology in the Classroom

   I believe the primary and original purpose of education was and still is to prepare students to be more productive than they would be without an education. The value of an educated person is so far beyond that of an uneducated person that the education pays for itself. Education is an investment that pays off in the future. It is impossible to predict the future, but investing is about making the best decision possible with the information available.

   In the next fifty years I see two potential futures. In the first, our reliance on technology ends catastrophically and we enter something like a Dark Age as we wait for another Enlightenment. In the second, technology continues to become a central part of almost all day-to-day activity and supplant people in various ways while creating new industries. Both of these scenarios sound like they’ve been ripped from a science fiction story, but look around, and you’ll see we are in a science fiction story. Google has made a self-driving car and Apple’s iPhone has made Star Trek’s tri-corder look like a 90’s brick-cellphone. If our students end up living in the first scenario, Boy Scout training will be far more helpful than their formal education. In the second scenario, knowing the capital cities will be useless (and so will many other “fundamental” skills) because the information will be readily available online.

   Technology will be a fundamental part of the future and if education is going to be a good investment our students need to enter the “real world” ready to use search engines efficiently, write algorithms, and use their own minds to merge, analyze and connect bits of information. It will be awhile before computer programming joins the other core classes like Reading and Science, but in the mean time we should be integrating technology into the classroom whenever it is pedagogically appropriate. The purpose of this blog is to share my research and experiences using technology to provide greater differentiation and prepare students for the digital future.