I just finished reading a teacher's blog that you can access here. In it, she shares a great idea for making rubrics more interactive. (Okay, okay, so it's not really my tech tip . . . I'm borrowing it from this blogger. But I still get some credit, right?)
The idea is to include QR codes on a rubric. QR codes, if you don't know, are those little things popping up everywhere that look like this:
You can scan a QR code with your smart phone and -- voila! -- it will bring you right to a particular website. It's technology magic!
It's pretty easy to do, too -- just visit any of the number of available sites that allow you to create a QR code for free, like this one.
Once you've got the knack for creating a QR code, you can paste it onto any document. For an interactive rubric (such as the one from the blog I referred you to above), simply paste the QR code alongside one of your rubric's items. This particular teacher knew her students were struggling with correctly integrating quotes into their essays. So, she placed a QR code on her rubric in the "Quotation Integration" column to help them out -- once this QR code was scanned, it would take students to a video this teacher found on YouTube all about properly integrating quotations.
QR codes can be a helpful way to flip your classroom a bit. And we don't have to stop at rubrics. QR codes could be placed on a homework assignment sheet or even on something students might be working on during class (if you allow them to use devices like smart phones for learning purposes in your classroom). QR codes could be used to take your students to a tutorial video as described above, or to online quizzes, websites, articles, surveys you wish your students to complete, images . . . the possibilities are endless!
I like this idea. When I attended the NCTE conference in Boston last November, a number of the presenters included QR codes on their slide shows. Those attending the workshop could simply take a picture of the QR code embedded in the slide show, using their Iphone, when the QR code was displayed on the big screen.
ReplyDeleteI did download a QR scanner ap on my phone but have not used it yet. I'm wondering if students need to have such an ap or if a scanner on their phone would accomplish the same purpose. I'm eager to learn more about this. Are you and Stacy going to include information about this in your upcoming SPS workshop on the use of technology for differentiated instruction?
Ha! I'm not sure if you need an app or not (I'm not as tech-savvy as I pretend to be!). But I can almost guarantee there'd be an app for that!
ReplyDeleteYes -- I'm sure this will come up at some point during our workshop! :)