I was reading an article on the Greatist website. This website had its readers respond to the question, "How do you find happiness?" The winner of this writing contest was Casie Cook. You can find her on Twitter @kaceemaree. There was a section of her writing that gave me an idea. She talked about how her dad left her Post-it notes randomly for her to find. These little notes had positive comments. Casie reminisced how this gave her happiness. This gave me an idea of using QR Codes to leave little "notes" of encouragement for my 1st graders. Since reading is a skill that is taught and refined in first grade, I knew that a QR Code that provided a text response could be a challenge to read for some students. However, there are a couple of options for creating QR Codes that play audio. Here is how I envision this in my classroom. Randomly put QR Codes in students' desks, book box, lunch card holder, etc. When a student finds one he/she can use our iPads to scan the QR Code and hear what the code says. I could start the year with my voice being the one speaking but transition to students creating their own voice QR Codes to share with each other. Talk about building happiness in addition to classroom community! The sky is the limit for what your QR Codes could say. "I am so proud of you." "Keep up the great work in math." "Thanks for being a kid of character." "I am so happy to have you in my class." "You have been a rockstar worker lately, keep it up!" Below are a few resources for creating the audio QR Codes: Record MP3 is a website that can be used to create an audio recording. Press record and begin talking. When finished, press stop. You can choose to save your recording or if you are not happy you can start over. Once you save your recording, you are given a link to the recording. Copy the link and take it to a QR Code generator like Kaywa or QR Code Generator. Paste your link and create a QR Code. Now you have a QR Code that you can print and cut out and place in a student's desk. Vocaroo is somewhat similar to Record MP3. You click the record button and say what you want. When done press stop. If you are happy you can click save or if unhappy you can retry. If you save, you are given a link for your recording as well as some other options for sharing your recording. You would then take the link to a QR Code generator to produce your talking QR Code. QR Voice allows you to type text. Once you have typed in your text, click the little QR Code to generate your scannable audio code. The only downside is that it will not be your own personal voice. However, if you do not have access to a microphone and want to create a QR Code that talks, QR Voice is an option.
4 Comments
7/23/2013 06:58:58 am
Hi Andrew -
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Andrew Fenstermaker
8/14/2013 02:16:32 pm
Steve,
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8/14/2013 01:41:19 pm
I love your blog and am using so many of your ideas. I am in charge of a 1:1 iPad initiative in an elementary school and we begin tomorrow. I'm telling the teachers about your site when I present tomorrow. Thank you for sharing!
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Andrew Fenstermaker
8/14/2013 02:15:07 pm
Fran,
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Andrew FenstermakerInstructional Technology Coordinator | Innovation Coach | Google Certified Innovator | Presenter | Blogger | Adjunct @UiowaEducation | Owner @kids_f_i_r_s_t |