QR codes are easy to create and easily connect your students to websites, photos, maps, and documents. If you were at the iPad Workshop for Teacher Leaders you used examples of along with the QR Scanner app to access information. I used the BeQRious website to create the business cards that were handed out that day.
As you can see from this diagram (Click to enlarge) it is an easy site to use and you have two options for printing and you can try out the sample code shown in the mobile phone on the page.
You can see the other options below and it the tabs above. The map tab allows you to place a marker and link to a map of any location. Their map starts in Colorado but if you back out by clicking the “-” sign and moving the marker to the location you want to map. Then push the “+” sign to zoom into the elevation that you think looks back. You can also switch from map to satellite view. Map will show streets, satellite will show the birds eye view, what you would see from a plane.
Other uses for QR Codes include:
1. Interactive Back to School Night: Post QR codes throughout the classroom, with titles about various student work. QR codes could access student videos, projects, blogs, and many other ideas only teachers can envision. Hand out devices (iPod Touches, for instance) to parents who don’t have a mobile device and show them how to read the QR code and access the materials.
2. Mobile Assignment Reminders: As your students leave the classroom, post a QR code on the door, with the title “Assignments for this Week.” Students could quickly scan the QR code and have that information instantly visible on their mobile devices. They won’t lose this as easily as a piece of paper.
3. Self-Assessment: Create flashcards with the QR codes on the back, which would provide the answers. You could get very creative with this and incorporate links to websites that would provide additional information about the questions.
4. Guided Tours: Students could create a guided tour of their school, a historical site, museum, or public building–researching the site, creating mobile webpages, videos, audio files, or any other type of appropriate media to provide more information–creating and posting the QR codes to the various locations.
5. Mobile Class Newsletters: Include a QR code along with the printed URL that would direct parents to a mobile version of your class newsletter. Make sure you include directions on what the QR code is and how it can be read by a mobile phone.
6. Code Quest: Create a cooperative learning “Code Quest” by posting QR codes at various locations. Each QR code will ask a question that will require the retrieval of an object. Once the object is found, another QR code will send students to another location, to locate yet another object. This Code Quest involves teamwork, cooperation, thinking, and moving around!
7. Instant Surveys or Quizzes: Create a survey or quiz using a Google Docs Form and create a QR code link to that form. Students, parents, whoever, can easily access and complete the survey or quiz on the mobile device.
