QR Codes in the Classroom

photo credit: Yutaka Tsutano via photopincc

I had a lot of fun this year helping another teacher begin implementing technology into her lessons. She isn't the most tech savvy educator, but wanted to learn and could see the benefit that technology could have for her students. I offered to help and we chose a few days to begin meeting an hour or two after school. When I asked her what she wanted to do she told me that she wanted something that she could easily integrate into lessons she had already planned.

A misconception many people have with using technology to teach is that you change what you teach. You suddenly need to make all new lessons. The thing is, you don't change what you teach as much as you change HOW you teach it. She had the right idea, so looking through her lessons we decided to try QR codes first.

This is one of the QR codes that the teacher used!

QR codes are basically bar-code images that allow you to quickly send information. The information can take many different forms: a website address, a location on a map, an e-mail address, or even just plain text. She had already planned a states project and a math graphing lesson for her students that she felt she could easily change parts of to integrate QR codes.

So, how did she do it? Instead of having students find the website to make their bar graphs on for the math project, she made a QR code for them to scan that would take the guess work out of if they were using the right site. Then, instead of having them write out how they went about getting their information and creating their graphs, she had them create a QR code that they would attach to their graphs.

Next, she decided that for their state projects, students would create QR codes for their state's capital. In this way they not only had to find their state's capital, but be able to locate it in google maps (which, let's be honest, that's how most of us would look it up). She then had students create QR codes of short paragraphs about their state. These, they posted up on a map.

I liked her idea so much, I used it myself!

Her results? The kids LOVED it! Her students were proud of their work and would show it off to not only other teachers, but to each other. They were engaged with their work and enjoyed learning about what others did as well.

Now, many of you may be thinking: that's it? But realistically, these small successes the teacher had encouraged her to step further out of her comfort zone: if this worked, what else could she do? By the end of the year, this teacher ended up creating her first video! Now that she knows how to create and edit a video she wants to show her students! How amazing is that?

So the questions is: Do you know someone who could use a little help with implementing technology into their lessons? What's stopping you from helping them?

Don't know how to use QR codes? Check out my iTunes U course on them!

As always,

Overly Enthusiastic Jen