MANAGING ICT
Ben Solly looks at how one of the latest mobile phone
innovations – QR Codes – could be employed in the classroom
when they are asked to complete a task with technology that is outdated or unreliable, when quite often they will have a device in their school bag that they are not allowed to use. On Twitter recently, I read some interesting
I
comments on the subject. Alan Tullock (@orkneyal) tweeted: “Tell a teacher in 1980 every learner will have a computer in their pocket? Amazing! Tell them they’ll be banned? Unbelievable!” Meanwhile, ICT guru Ewan McIntosh (@ewanmcintosh) quoted a student from Stirling High (@Stirling_High) who makes an interesting point: “If McDonalds and French campsites give us free wi-fi, why aren’t our schools?” Well, why aren’t we? Mobile phones are banned in most secondary
schools, yet students will carry their Blackberrys, iPhones and other SmartPhones regardless, quite content to risk confiscation in order to keep this indispensable item with them. A student with a SmartPhone is walking
around with a dictionary, translator, calculator, encyclopaedia, camera and video recorder in their pocket, and that’s before they have downloaded any applications! Yet they are most likely not allowed to use them.
Instead of embracing this wonderful resource and teaching our students to use it responsibly, we prohibit their usage, and by doing this we are seriously missing
a trick. Mobile technology is evolving exponentially and as educators we need to embrace the opportunities it affords us because our students will use it, whether it is outlawed or not. Engaging students with exciting, varied and
innovative activities in the classroom is an integral weapon in the armoury of the modern day teacher. Indeed, it always has been like this, yet the necessity today is amplified due to our students having cutting- edge technology at their fingertips. The answer, or one of them, is allowing students to use their own devices at certain points in a lesson.
An exciting approach to incorporating SmartPhones in lessons is to use QR (Quick Response) Codes. QR Codes are square, black and white 2D codes that can contain a huge amount of data and which have actually been about for a while, but predominantly used in the Far East until recently. Last year, the use of QR Codes increased in Europe
and America, with their use in education only scratching the surface of their potential. QR Codes can be scanned using a SmartPhone or
iPod Touch to reveal text content, a web URL, a phone number or a text message. Some SmartPhones come with a QR Scanner built in but there is an array of free Apps available to download. Once the QR Scanner has been downloaded, it
is simply a matter of opening the App and pointing the camera at the code and then the content will automatically be downloaded to the phone. So how can QR Codes be used to enhance student
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learning? The fact that a QR Code creates a link from a piece of paper to the digital world means that there is a seemingly limitless scope for their use in education. Here are 10 practical ideas.
Enhancing handouts and notes
Placing a QR Code in a handout can offer students the opportunity to further their knowledge by creating a link to an online resource or video. For example, in a GCSE PE lesson on the circulatory system, the QR Code here links to a YouTube video. Students could scan the code in class or in their own time for homework. Students without SmartPhones could simply enter the shortened URL into their web browser address bar.
Enriching existing resources
Textbooks are still a valuable source of information for certain subjects, yet the technologically savvy students of today want information immediately and in a format they are comfortable with. Placing a QR Code in a textbook could link to an online resource, video, picture, diagram, blog or survey to further develop student understanding.
Lesson notes
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Rather than printing off reams of paper resources for students to take home (many of which will be inevitably lost, damaged or destroyed), let them scan a QR Code as they leave your room that downloads the lesson notes to their SmartPhones.
Classroom/corridor displays
Enhance the impact of displays by including a QR Code that links a relevant online resource. This QR Code supplements an art display on Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream, for example.
Recording homework
Instead of asking students to hastily scribble homework down at the end of a lesson, display a QR Code containing the task on the board. Students can scan the code as they exit the room.
10 Treasure hunt
Place QR Codes with clues/tasks around the school. Students travel around the school in small groups with a SmartPhone or iPod touch, scan the code, complete the task or solve the problem and then move to the next code. This is a great way of developing map reading and orienteering skills too.
Independent learning
Film a tutorial of the task you wish students to complete (or an extension task, or a trouble-shooting tutorial). Create a QR Code from the YouTube or website URL and have it available for students to scan and watch if they are stuck or need extending.
Book reviews
Task students with completing a book review for a resource within the school library. Create a QR Code from the review and place the code in the sleeve of the book. Students who wish to borrow the book can scan the code to read a review before they check it out of the library.
Timetables/equipment lists
For example, a food technology teacher could create a QR Code that contains a list of ingredients students need to bring to their next lesson. In departments where subjects and activities rotate, QR Codes could be displayed so students can download the relevant information. This example is our PE timetable.
Showcasing student work
Student work can be displayed in classrooms, newsletters and displays by creating QR Codes that link to the web URL where the work is stored online.
Top Tips for creating QR Codes
• Once you have copied the desired URL, find a QR Code generator website using a simple internet search and paste in the URL. It is that easy!
• Use a URL shortener to make the code less complex, this makes it easier to scan.
• To create QR Codes for documents (MS Word, PowerPoint), store the documents online (I use Googledocs). Make the documents “public” and then copy the URL, shorten it and create a QR Code using the steps outlined above (converting the document to a PDF before uploading to Googledocs makes it easier to read on a SmartPhone too).
• Include the shortened URL underneath the QR Code when you display it. This will allow students to access the online resource via the internet on a computer if they do not have a SmartPhone. SecEd
• Ben Solly is assistant principal at Long Field School in Melton Mowbray.
Useful Websites
• More ideas on using QR Codes in education:
http://socialme.wikispaces.com/QR
• A URL shortener:
https://bitly.com/ • A QR Code generator:
http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ • Googledocs:
www.google.com/docs • A QR code quiz generator (good for the orienteering idea):
www.classtools.net
SecEd • January 5 2012
HAVE HEARDfor some time now that many students in the UK have to “power down” when they enter a classroom, an argument that suggests the devices young people have at home are often vastly superior to those available to them at school. Imagine the frustration a student feels
Using QR codes
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