Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Word Walls and QR Codes!


If you are like me, sometimes you may struggle with making the word wall relevant or a tool that students use frequently. At the beginning of the year, I felt like my word wall was just there, taking up space. I wanted to spruce it up and I wanted  my students to actually pay attention to it! After all, I was spending a lot of time painstakingly writing the words on sentence strips, laminating, and cutting. Then, inspiration struck me! Why not add QR codes to my word wall? QR codes are the cute little barcodes you see on everything nowadays. You use a barcode scanner on your smart device and it will take you to a website or informational text. Students have technology at their finger tips but rarely know how to use it to discover information. I love it when I hear a student ask if they can look something up on their phone. I decided to take my word wall to the next level and guess what? Students love it and use it on a daily basis!

 
Here is a close-up of my laminated words and QR codes. Students are able to get up and scan the word.


The words at the top need to be redone. Those are my pitiful word wall words from the beginning of the year.
 
 
Of course, just like anything new you introduce to your students, you must teach procedures for how to interact with the word wall. I do not have the QR codes taking my students to websites, instead, I have it take them to a text document that has the definition provided. I am going to start putting QR codes on students' desks when they come in and it will provide them with a discussion question. I will post about this endeavor at a later time.
 
 
Also, if not all students have smart devices, don't fret! My students are in groups of 4 so usually, at least one student in the group has a smart device and can use it for the group. Also, if you have extra iPads, you could utilize those.
 
 
 

7 comments:

  1. You just keep amazing me Courtenay! Keep up the good work! Your students have a great teacher with amazing ideas that just won't take mediocrity as the norm.

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    1. Thank you so much! I love every single day of teaching :)

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  2. I love the QR codes! I'll be using that with my students next week.

    Life With Middle Schoolers

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    1. Thank you so much! The kiddos love to do them :) Good luck, let me know how it goes!

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  3. What a fabulous idea! I love it! I do have a thought that could take this idea even one step further . . . you could have STUDENTS create the definition or sentence (or whatever you want them to have as a reference when they scan the word). Their homework or in-class assignment could be that they have to come up with a way to create a reference for a word on the word wall. I just made a blog post about a program called Narrable that would be a great fit for this! It's quick and easy to use, and it has features that allow students to collaborate within it. Narrable creates a link that can be turned into a QR code, so it's perfect! I created a padlet so that others could add their ideas about how to use Narrable. I made a link to your post here and mentioned how I thought your idea could be used with Narrable. You can follow this link to find the padlet where I added a link to your post: http://padlet.com/wall/narrable
    And if you'd like to see the post that lists several ways that you can use Narrable, you can find it here: http://emilystuff.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/aprils-21st-century-tool-of-the-month-narrable/
    Thanks for sharing your great ideas!
    Emily from the Teacher Stuff blog

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    1. Hey! Thank you so much for the resource. Yes, the students usually do create his/her own definitions for the word wall! I am definitely going to check out this resource so I can use it in my classroom!

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  4. I just found this blog and this post. This is an awesome idea. I teach ESOL at a 1:1 iPad school and having the students be able to access a picture or video from the word wall would make it more interactive and student-friendly.

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