QR codes in the Classroom

from Teaching News by Mark Warner...
QR codes in the Classroom: "
Many teachers are beginning to see the benefits of using QR codes in the classroom. If you’re not familiar with QR codes, they are black and white pictures (similar to the barcodes that appear on items of food etc.). When you scan the QR code with a special application (many of which are free and available for computers / smart phones / mobile devices), special messages can be revealed, contact details can be shared and (sometimes long and complicated) web addresses can be visited easily.

If you would like to find out more, here’s a video which gives more information about QR codes. It was made by a follower of Teaching Ideas on Facebook, Jonathan White:

Here are some other examples of how teachers are using QR codes with their pupils:

• Tom Barrett has used QR codes in his classroom and has shared a number of useful suggestions for using them to help children to access a range of digital resources. He has also started an ‘Interesting Ways’ presentation, which currently has 26 suggestions for using QR codes in education. You can view the presentation here and on Ideas to Inspire.
• The pupils in David Mitchell’s class have stuck them into their Literacy books, as a way of encouraging those looking at the books to visit a copy of their work online and read the comments that had been added there!
• Kerry Turner has used QR codes in a number of ways. I was particularly impressed with the idea of printing them on sticky labels and using them to share useful sites / important information with students.
• James Michie has written a detailed account of the use of QR codes in education, which contains a number of ideas and lots of links to explore.
• Dughall has also written an interesting review of QR codes, which includes some ideas for using a related tool called Stickybits.

I have recently created QR codes for all of my Teaching Websites, along with all of the Teaching Themes. You can download a poster which shows all of these, should you wish to use the codes to visit the sites. Download the poster here.

If you’re planning to use my Internet tutorial, Welcome to the Web, it might be useful to print the relevant code for children to enable them to access the site more easily.

Have you used QR codes in the classroom?




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