Tech Project No. 5: QR Codes

A couple years ago I entered a sweepstakes and ended up winning a Garmin GPS unit by scanning the 2-dimensional QR codes.  As more and more kids have cell phones this type of technology could become an interesting, interactive way to have students learn.

What I created:

I used the QR generation tool on http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ to create a code that would be a part of a scavenger hunt.  I would make several sets of QR codes that would have questions, one that would have links to informational websites, one that would have links to pictures of the subjects in the material.  This would create an interactive experience that I would be somewhat able to control in order to make sure that students would see the material that I thought would be able help them learn about subject material.

This one is a clue to a scavenger hunt about prominent chemists.  Another code I made linked to a website that had information on the scientist from the code above.

Rationale:

This type of activity would cater to the bottom three levels of Bloom's taxonomy if it were used just as is.  Students would be able to gather information in an interactive and fun way.  But if it were coupled with another assignment like making a bumper sticker or poster.  By using it as a stepping stone to another assignment students will elevate this activity toward the upper levels of Bloom's Taxonomy--students would have to analyze, evaluate, and then create a project to illustrate the information they were just perusing.

Struggles for Implementation:

One of the struggles that I can see coming up in the implementation is that students will not have the technology at their disposal to read these codes.  I've seen apps for the iPhone/iPad that would allow the students to use these codes, and there are probably apps out there on other platforms as well, but their availability to students may be limited due to cost, or lack of a phone that can run the app.  Another struggle could be convincing administration that the activities would be worth it to use in the class room. This is a unique activity that is very technology intensive, but I can see how administrators would have a hard time justifying the use of cell phones in the classroom on it.  Administrators could say that it would be better for students to use the materials that the school provides rather than requiring them to use private resources.

Biases, Trade-offs, Limitations:

A major bias that I noticed right off the back is that you can only utilize digital, internet resources.  This would limit what information students would be exposed to.  However, this limitation would also help make sure that you as the teacher would know what information students would have access to, making sure that they got reliable information.  It would be a possible means to magnify the technology divide if there were students who had phones that could accomplish this task and those who did not in the same class.  I could see a way around this if you made a partner activity and had a student with a phone and one who did not work together create the project after this activity.

Standards:
INTASC
5.)  Depending on what questions you ask the students with the codes, any amount of critical thinking is possible.  Using this activity as a partner activity will also encourage collaboration between students who are technology comfortable and those that aren't, in other words encourage collaboration between a diverse set of learners.

8.) This is combination of several active learning strategies that are meant to help students stay engaged in the learning process for the duration of the time that they are in class: partner work, having them get up and move around the room, do their own research in order to create something to describe what they learned.

Citation and Evaluation of Source:

A Multiple-Modality Approach to Word Study: Vocabulary Scavenger Hunts

Sally Vaughan, Sharon Crawley and Lee Mountain

The Reading Teacher
Vol. 32, No. 4 (Jan., 1979), pp. 434-437

This article described a process that would be similar to using QR codes but through a much more analog process.  Students would define their vocab terms then go out to find pictures of things that would be described by those vocab words.  Even though I could not access the full article it shows that this type of interactive experience has been around for a long time, and teachers keep figuring out new and useful ways to keep this strategy up to date in the ever changing technological climate of our society.  I think that it would work better if there were fewer students in each group than was outlined in the source (5-10) because that way you would eliminate the number of students who could "coast through" the activity.