QR codes such as this one certainly aren’t all that new, but they seem to be infiltrating the market everywhere: business cards, magazine pages, products on store shelves, and yes, the classroom!
What are they? They are really nothing more than barcodes that can contain a huge amount of data (huge compared to the 16 characters stored in those old striped barcodes). Not only can they store text, but they can also direct a mobile app to go to a specific site, add a contact, create a text message, go to a Google Maps location, and… well, just go see for yourself all it can do at the website mentioned above.
How are they created? Can you fill out a form with some information? That’s it. Just select the data type, enter the information and the website builds your QR code before your eyes. You can then copy or save the image to use wherever you want! Yes, even on T-shirts!
How are they used in the classroom? Your mobile device must have a QR code reader app. For iOS and Android, we recommend, i-nigma.
See if any of these ideas get your creative juices flowing:
Self-checking review cards- say the answer out loud, check yourself
Test review with the answer to the questions encoded in a QR tag- fold paper to show only 1 of 4 codes, scan to see if you were right!
Matching- scan your card and find the other person that holds the matching term or definition, trade and do it again.
Well, contrary to popular belief, I am not dead, maimed or otherwise deposed. I guess I’ll just say I’ve been busy. It’s been a while since I posted (hanging head in shame), but I’m back! We’re finally into the swing of school, and things are settling into a routine… I’ll probably get it under control around the beginning of May
I’m posting today about a cool website my dear buddy Janet showed me a while back. It’s an awesome avatar maker sponsored by the New York Zoos and Aquarium called BuiLD YouR WiLD SeLF. I love this and I know kids do too. To start, you put in your name and decide whether you are a girl or a boy. Then you can customize your avatar with choices of hair, eyes, mouths, and clothes. That’s if you want a human avatar like this one.
Recently, the first week of school actually (August 23-30), the two of us traveled to the beautiful country of Costa Rica at the invitation of Fundación CIENTEC to present several technology sessions at their 13th Avo Congreso Nacional de Ciencia Tecnologia Y Sociedad in Puntarenas (on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica). While neither of us knew much Spanish, we met some incredible people who gave us some great adventures.
We especially want to thank Estrella Burgos, Marteen Bonfil, and Alejandra Leon-Castella (who still does not have a Facebook account)! From presenting sessions via translators and eating octopus pizza to hiking through the rainforest and having sunset dinners, we had the time of our lives. Here’s just a small sample:
Click on an image to zoom in (or watch it full screen by clicking the button in the lower right of the player)!
Pura Vida! Costa Rica! on PhotoPeach
This interactive website allows student to see the effects of using Boolean operators (AND, NOT, OR) in a standard Google search. Simply drag the puzzle pieces to the stage, enter the keywords, and watch as the number of hits goes from millions to thousands to just a few.
In my example, searching for “Dallas” OR “Cowboys” yielded about 217 Million hits. Whereas changing the operator to AND yielded about 17.4 Million hits. This is a great way for students to visually build Boolean searches and instantly see the effects on search results (which are displayed below the stage).
While you’re there, check out the page full of lessons, including a great video about Boolean searching in plain English!
I have no idea what that name means- and honestly don’t know how to pronounce it. So just make up some logical combination of sounds that use those letters and you’ll be as smart as the rest of us. What I do know is that this is a nice and simple way to display an online message with its own unique URL. Those of you who use Text Bin or some other textbin website, you’ll immediately start thinking about all the cool uses of this site.
Here are some examples:
And my favorite…
So how can these be used? Let me count the ways…
Main Idea posters
Things ___________ would say (character from reading)
Describing functions of scientific structures (ex: cellular organelles)
Vocabulary terms and definitions
Political slogans
Quotations from a reading passage explained
Post card writing activities
Narratives
Have other ideas or want to show off your own creations? Comment below!
I’m not so sure that this applies to most of you, but it was a huge, huge, huge time saver for me! You see, my computer at home was having some issues causing the hard drive to whirl 24/7 until the computer overheated and shut down. So finally I decided to re-image the machine (set it back to factory defaults). That fixed the issue, but then I had the gargantuan task of reinstalling and/or updating all those programs we all use all the time like Firefox, Flash player, Acrobat Reader, Skype, Yahoo Messenger, CutePDF and on and on. I was faced with a choice:
1. Old School- go to each individual website, download the installer, run the installer, click through the options (without installing the extra bloatware like toolbars, etc.), then go to the next website, etc.
2. The Ninite way- just check the boxes beside any of the 89 applications you want to install or update, then download one installer, and run the one installer, then go grab an iced tea and watch TV. Here’s just a snippet of what I mean:
Features of this awesome web service (other than the above mentioned one download and install), text from their website:
No Clicking Next, Next, Next- Ninite fully automates installers offscreen.
No Toolbars- Ninite automatically says “No” to toolbars and other junk.
Always Up-to-date- A Ninite installer always gets an app’s latest version no matter when you made it.
It Updates Too- Just run your Ninite installer again and it will update the apps to their latest versions.
No Signup- Ninite just works. No account, signup, or client needed.
32 and 64-bit- Ninite installs the best version of an app for your PC.
But wait! What about a Mac version? Uhhh, you will have to go ask the turtle-necked geek in Cupertino, CA to open up his system a little more (yes, that same one who replied to the student’s email with “Our goals do not include helping you get a good grade. Sorry.” )
One of my friends recently mentioned this in her blog (Thanks Deana!), and I finally got around to checking it out. I love this site. I’m not exactly sure how you would use it with students, although I can see some really great creative writing that could be associated with it. This blog tugged at my heart, and practically had me in tears a couple of times.
The basic concept is to take an old photograph, take it to the same exact place and hold it up and take a new photograph. The captions though are what makes this site great.
If you do any web design of any kind, this site may come in handy for you. Instead of filling the area where an image goes with a solid color or some other placeholder, why not fill it with real images that are cut to the specified size?
Here you simply enter the desired dimensions of the image placeholder after the http://placekitten.com URL. In an instant (well, with a good connection), it will open an image with the exact dimensions you need so you can use the image as a placeholder. But why kittens? Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that I really have no fondness of cats in particular (though I’m not a cat hater either). But I guess the images are harmless enough- and would definitely remind me that they need to be replaced. So why not?
OK, there are a thousand To-Do lists out there on the internet, but I certainly like the simplicity of this one. Scrumy allows you to create a unique URL which gives you your own page to track activities then move them from the To-Do area to the In Progress area and then to the Verify section and finally to the Done area by clicking and dragging the note- much like you would on a board of Post-it notes.
There is no login required for the free version- so you better make your URL pretty obscure so no one comes across it by accident. Go play with their Demo page at: https://scrumy.com/demo. The paid version (about $7/month) has some nice features and looks much better. But the free version would suffice for project planning and tracking for short-term projects for students and such. Now there’s an idea- teach our students how to use technology to plan and manage projects (wish I had been taught that early on)! Enjoy!
Personal Side Note: Susan and I are heading to ISTE in Philadelphia next week where we will present four sessions (in addition to the awesome Segway tour and the walking ghost tour). So if you have any suggestions for us for things we must do in Philly (though our free time is limited), please sound off below in the comments! And if you are going to be at ISTE, please come by our publisher’s booth and say “hi” to us! Our publisher, Visions in Technology, will have several booths: 2324, 2420, 2321, 2421, 2325, 1910, 2425, 2327 (all but one are all right together in one area).
This strangely-named web app allows you (and students) to build your own posters using a simple drag and drop interface. Posters may be created from templates or can be built from scratch where you add your own text, images, events, captions, etc. The final creations can be printed or saved, shared on the major social networks, or can be marked private. It’s free! Yeah, they are hoping you’ll buy one of their professional prints of your work- to each his own. I mean, who wouldn’t want this poster hanging on their wall?
