Streamline your class with QR codes

I have started a new obsession with QR codes.  QR codes are those square thingys that a lot of advertisers use to get you to their websites.  QR codes though are simply a link to a website, document or any other web based thing.  Now that I have been getting more comfortable with web based activities I am seeing the convenience QR codes can offer.   I am 100% in on putting the learning on the shoulders of the students and giving them every opportunity to get the information at their pace.  QR codes have become another tool to help with that. 

I have completed my first semester of flipping my health education classes.  I have vids done, note sheets done and vid quizzes done.  Now I am in the process of tweaking those things as well as the classroom activities I do.  I have worked to trin my students how to access the classroom materials from a variety of settings (basically problem solving) so they have options.  I have my website www.healthteacher.com where all my vids, notes and quiz links are.  We have a classroom account on Edmodo where students can access my videos from a shared folder, students can subscribe to my YouTube channel or they can pick up a cd with the videos on them. 

For my note sheets, i usually print them out and have them available in the classroom and i have them on my website for download.  Now, I am in the process of converting my notes from a PDF format to google docs where I now have a web based document.  Students have two options to get the note sheets.  Pick one up in class or download an print one off the website.  I worked on this first semester but I found that most kids watched the video & took the quiz without taking any notes.  That bit them in the butt come unit test & exam time.  Now I hand out the note sheets (I call them W3's Watch, Write & Wonder  - another blog on this to follow) so everyone's gets one.  Then, if they "misplace" it, they can pick up or download a new one.  I think this also helps remind them to watch the vodcast when they have a W3 in their hand.

What I can to now is copy my video URL and go to an online QR code maker and create a QR code for my video.  I can label and post that code anywhere now.  In the classroom, on desks, on the walls etc.  I thought .. "Why stop there?"  I then took the URL for the video quiz and made a QR code for that.  Now I can post that code where I want.  Now the kids can just scan the code and the video or quiz will pop up right there on their phone, iPod or tablet.  Now the question is where to put these codes? 

Well I had another break-through and thought, "what if I put these codes right on the W3?"  Viola .... I tried it.  On my notes sheet I put a QR code in the top corner for the video and a QR code on the bottom corner to link to the quiz.  With that one note sheet they can link directly to both the vodcast AND the quiz without going to any other sources.  In a sense it streamlines the process and make access quicker.

I also use QR codes on scenario worksheets in class.  I attach a QR code to the bottom of the sheet that is linked to a google doc with questions to answer.  Now they can just submit the answers and I can see what they have completed.  This eliminates the "do we still need to keep this?" question.  They submit it at the end, and I can record scores and check work with no paper trail.  It also makes make-up activities easier when they can look at a scenario sheet online and scan the QR code and submit questions without ever printing off a piece of paper or picking anything up from me.  I simply gives them what they need when they need it.

You just need to have your students download a scanner app (free on both iOS and Android) and they are ready to go.  It's been pretty fun playing around with QR codes and finding new ways to use them.

Skype & Polleverywhere Combo

I recently did a skype activity while also using polleverywhere as a way to generate discussion.

The Story ....

My health classes were just beginning a unit on Addiction. To start the unit off I usually share a story about my wife who, in her younger days, didn’t make such good decisions.  She had gotten involved in the party lifestyle at a young age and by the time she had reached her junior year she had gotten into an alcohol related crash that totaled her car and broke her right femur in 22 places.

After seeing how a lot of her friends were drinking AND doing drugs she got rather bitter about her “consequence” when she only drank … thus thrusting her into a more hardcore party mindset.  By the next year she began experimenting with drugs and even selling drugs.  She wound up getting into a 2^nd accident where she crushed her right ankle.  There was irreparable damage to her lower leg/ankle.  This time she “woke-up” so to speak and realized that she couldn’t keep living this kind of life and made some positive changes.

The set up ....

The first class day, I share the entire story (pictures and all) with the class.  I usually do a big dramatic rendition of the events as if these had happened to two different people that I knew.  I reveal at the end this happened to the same person.  It is kind of entertaining because I get a lot of comments like “what is she stupid?”, and “you’d think she would’ve learned?!” …. Then the big reveal … it was my wife (I usually show some family pics and let them figure it out … it is a shocking revelation.  (My wife and I have been married 17 years and I have been doing this for a while so I have had my wife’s blessing.  She would also admit that in those days she wasn’t real bright so the comments aren’t offensive but ring more truth than not.) 

 Usually after the presentation, I am flooded with all kinds of questions about her shoe raise, what did her parents think, does she still drink .. etc.  Schedules don’t always allow for her to come in, and she can easily get frustrated when a teen looks at her with the “Yeah, but that is you … I am not THAT dumb” kind of look  ;-)  she isn’t as refined as I am … tee hee

The "Light Bulb" ....

Wondering how to make the personal experience a little more convenient, I got the idea a year ago to use Skype!!  Viola … we could have her in class and the kids can interact and talk to her and she doesn’t have to leave the house.  Some classes only need like 20 mins and another might take the whole hour??   Most of the time I would get a few good questions and then kids would sort of “time-out” so I wanted to generated more discussion.  This year I started using Polleverywhere in my classes and realized this was a perfect complement to a Skyping activity.  The kids can send questions and I can monitor and read them in a flash.  It worked awesome!  Kids could ask questions and not worry if they were getting too personal and it allowed me to re-word questions that might be confusing otherwise.   My next challenge may be to have the presenter open the poll on another device so he/she can see the questions as they come in.  My wife, for example, could have the poll up on her iPad while she is skyping us on the computer.  That way she can see the questions as they pop up in real time and can answer them accordingly.

I realized that with the Flipped classroom model gaining popularity and classes starting to use Skype and other video chatting platforms it seems to be a perfect complement to each other.  Even with a guest speaker, it allows kids to text questions during a presentation as they think of them, and I (or the presenter) can answer them as they come in.  It can also be a check at the end to see if all the questions got answered in the presentation.  I was also able to use the Mobile app so I can monitor the poll right on my smartphone and not be tied to a computer.  It worked very efficiently.   If your presenter has this technology, I think it could be a very engaging way to interact with a presenter.

 I hoping to schedule a few more Skype sessions with some “experts” in the health & Fitness field next semester and I truly think that Polleverywhere is a great tool to use to help draw questions out of students.  Maybe this is old news for those out there using technology, but using skype and Polleverywhere in tandem was a great success.  So if you are interested, give it a try.

 FYI … The kids like the Tweet option in polleverywhere and the pollev.com/ feature seems to be the easiest as you can “push” your polls to mobile devices.  Just my observation … J