Scanning the room

I was at a wedding the weekend gone. I arrived at my allotted seat and collected from the table the traditional wedding guest gift one generally receives from a bride and groom. I half expected to be given a package of those hideous sugar coated almonds, so imagine my surprise when all I received was a barcode. At first I was furious, believing that the bride and groom had the audacity to ask me to stick a barcode to myself to be scanned every time I visited the open bar. The MC settled our confusion when he asked us all to take out our smart phones and download a certain application. The groom is an Apple software engineer, so I should have expected an innovative, technological spin to their wedding; however, I didn’t for a moment think that it could lead my introduction to a mobile media resource with huge pedagogical potential. A What? QR Codes or Quick Response Codes are a small barcode-like images that can store information such as URLs, so that when the user ‘scans’ the barcode with a camera enabled mobile media device, they can be instantly taken to digital place the author wishes them to visit (Anderson, 2010). In the case of my friend’s wedding, their QR code took us to their wedding website. All their guests can now relive their special day over and over again... Well, all new technologies have their draw backs. So what does that mean for teachers? Educational bloggers Steve Anderson (2010) and Tom Barrett (2010) are among a huge number of online contributors listing resources available to teachers wishing to use QR codes in their classrooms. To list but a few: Replace book covers with QR codes; students would be taken to multimedia book trailers and online reviews. Instead of reading out answers to student inquiry questions, have them listed as QR Codes Use QR codes to communicate daily notices and upcoming school events Put QR codes in halls and corridors to include non-traditional learning environments with traditional ones I’m not so naive to believe that all schools and students have access to smartphones. Nor to the reality that teachers allowing their presence in classrooms wouldn’t be faced with behavioural and ethical challenges. However, these issues of unequal access and digital ethics surround all elements of mobile media and require consideration and trust in a student/parent/teacher partnership. Educators shouldn’t ignore potential resources, but rather seek ways to gradually include them into their teaching and learning experiences. Getting Started Creating a QR code is simple. One simply enters a URL, an image or a short amount of text (less than 4000 characters) into one of the many online, free QR Code generators. You are then able to save the code as a picture, and as such, copy and paste it wherever it’s needed. In fact, the QR code on this page is one I made myself. Visit the App store and download a free QR Code reader and see what webpage it takes you to. Oh alright, it’s just the home page of this blog! References Anderson, S. (2010). QR Codes in education. Retrieved from http://livebinders.com/play/play/51894 Barrett, T. (2010). 41 Interesting ways to use QR codes in the classroom. Retrieved From https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dhn2vcv5_765hsdw5xcr&revision=_latest&start=0&theme=blank&authkey=COX05IsF&cwj=true