From websites to newspapers and magazines to museums, pretty much anywhere I look, I see QR codes popping up. So one of my goals this school year is to organize by grade level and subject area ideas for extending teaching and learning with QR codes success stories.
My interest in QR codes started when one of my Merit colleagues mentioned an algebra teacher at her site, who compensates for outdated textbooks by pasting on selected pages notes with QR codes that take her students to dynamic websites to elaborate on and extend a particular algebraic concept. And a recent blog post from the Calgary Science School on Showcasing Student work with QR Codes really has me thinking about the possibilities.
For the past year, I’ve been hanging out virtually with National Writing Project (NWP) teachers in the Know ELLs ning. This talented, dedicated group helped prepare me for the CTEL exam and continues to keep me thinking about best practices for teaching English as a second language. So my focus this month will be on finding examples of how QR codes are increasing teaching and learning opportunities for all levels of ELLs.
A Google search on QR codes ELLs (which yielded over 120,000 results!) brought up some good sites for background information, such as:
- 7 Things You Should Know about QR Codes – From Educause, QR codes in a nutshell
- QR Code Implementation Guide – Wonderful guide and tips from the wonderful Vicki Davis
- Using QR Codes in the Classroom – Shelley Terrell’s YouTube webinar on QR use her classroom, with students as content creators
Leave it to the awesome Tom Barrett to come up with 40 interesting ways to use QR codes in the classroom:
Through my Google search, I did find a couple of useful resources for ELLs, such as this ELL Resources and Vocabulary PDF with QR codes for various ELL organizations, but what I haven’t yet found are tried-and-true ELL classroom stories of QR code successes, suggestions, etc. Although I can certainly think of a few ideas where QR codes could make lessons more accessible to ELLs, what I’m looking for are actual “from the trenches” examples. So please leave a comment if you can point me to some!