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The teacher in this article teaches 12th grade British Literature classes. The students had just started reading a challenging book called The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, which can be challenging to understand all of the abstract ideas in the book. As the teacher was rereading the book she came up with an idea to use QR codes for a project which would connect the students to the story in a creative way. She then discussed the difference between virtual reality and augmented reality, the latter being a way to enhance our reality with technology. She goes on to describe QR codes as simple technology but effective. The students used QR codes to put their sources onto the way they they decorated, which in turn had to do with the book they were reading by C.S. Lewis. After all the students had added their codes to the wall the teacher was then able to take out her smartphone and test them. She would scan a code and be able to see the students sources and more background information about their topic. She really enjoyed doing this project because it wasn't just a boring poster project, but a fun interactive one that really helped the students to learn.
As a future educator I think QR codes can be a great tool to use in the classroom. Unfortunately not everyone has a smartphone, especially the level of children that I want to teach, so this technique might be better used in a high school. It is great to be able to simply scan a code and find their source and more information, it makes learning more fun and exciting. If you always do things the same old boring way, students won't want to try, but give then technology and they will run with it.
The ISTE standards that are demonstrated in this article were standard number 6- understand and use technology systems and transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies. Standard number 3 is also a good one which states that they locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources. They also followed standard number 2 which is about communication and collaboration.
Source: Walden, H. (November 2011). QR Codes in the Literature Classroom. Learning & Leading With Technology, 39(3), 30-31. Retrieved from http://iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading.aspx
I think an another great use of the QR code would be to link it to a teacher created website. Maybe you could put the code on the syllabus so a student who misses class could just scan it with their device and see any class information they miss. This would require a technological minded teacher, but this would give the students another avenue to information.
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