Tuesday 12 March 2019
Today in our session we looked at the advantages of outdoor learning and how we could use QR codes to create a fun lesson. QR codes are like bar codes, you can scan them by using an app or if you have an iPhone the camera can actually detect the code and redirect you. QR stands for ‘Quick Response’, and once you scan a QR code within seconds it redirects you to text, a website, an audio recording, a phone number, an email, address, a location or a calendar event.
Outdoor learning experiences are often remembered for a lifetime according to Education Scotland (2010). Children will likely remember a learning experience that is out with their usual environment, the outdoors allows for so many possibilities as there is such a vast amount of space and materials. The outdoors provides children with more exciting, motivating, relevant and easily accessible activities (Education Scotland, 2010). Outdoor learning activities definitely would enhance learning and engage a handful of children. Outdoor learning activities allow children to develop communication skills, problem solving skills and team working skills (Education Scotland, 2010). Using QR codes outside would be a really fun idea as children could work collaboratively to follow the clues from each QR code. You are able to do a sort of treasure hunt activity with QR codes, using them outdoors would be really memorable and engage children in their learning. Outdoor learning is great because it can allow certain pupils to demonstrate certain skills that they maybe couldn’t showcase in the classroom, this would increase their self-esteem and also some children might gain a new perspective on another pupil (Education Scotland, 2010).
QR codes promote student engagement as the children are motivated to get to the next QR code as often there is promise of a reward (Professional Learning Board, 2013). QR codes are a really great resource for teachers as they have complete control of what information is displayed once the QR code is scanned and they can create a really fun lesson which is completely customised towards their class and their learning outcomes. Using ICT has a positive effect on attainment (Beauchamp, 2012). QR codes stand out to me as if you do something like a QR hunt children aren’t just sitting in the one place using digital technologies but they’re having the opportunity to move around and explore different areas of the school or the outdoors. Using QR codes outside can be especially effective as it can fit in with health and wellbeing, science and probably many more curricular areas.
Our task was to create a classroom activity using QR codes. In a group we picked to do our activity at level 1 and we ensured the level of sums and language we used was appropriate to this level. We wanted to base this task off of previous learning and so we decided to focus again on money in the context of a supermarket, just like we did for Programmable Toys and Multimodality. We wanted to create an activity which would be interactive and allow children to work collaboratively. We then sat together and figured out how we would create a task like this using QR codes, this was good as we worked really well as a team to solve a problem and team building skills and problem-solving skills will be really important skills for me to use as a teacher.
We decided we would make the QR hunt start buy giving the children a sum. The answer to the sum would be the number of rooms they had to go to in order to find the next QR code. The next QR code would give them the next item on the shopping list which they would be able to score off their list.
They would also have another sum which would lead them to the next room and so on. As the hunt went on, the children would have to write the price of each item next to it and add it up to make find the total of their shopping at the end. We could’ve done this task for second level learning if we made the sums more advanced by using multiplication or even division.
We used the website ‘QRStuff.com’ to create our QR codes. The QR codes were easy to create and really simple. We pasted each QR code onto a word document and printed them out.
Creating the sums for each QR code, connecting each clue and putting up the QR codes however was very time consuming and reflecting on this it took us quite a long time to create the activity and it turned out to be really very short. If I was doing this activity with a class, I would need to ensure it lasted a good amount of time even if that meant it took a little longer to plan.
While the QR code generator was simple to use it had limited features and we couldn’t add pictures to the text link which we really wanted to do. If we had some more time, we could’ve printed out pictures of each item and placed them with the QR codes as I feel visuals would help in making the activity more fun and relevant to real life.
Our task could follow this outcome from the curriculum for excellence:
I can use money to pay for items and can work out how much change I should receive. MNU 1-09a
(Scottish Government, n.d.).
I enjoyed creating a QR code activity. Until this session I had no idea there were even sites available that allowed you to create your own QR codes. Using QR codes to create a treasure hunt whether its inside a building or outdoors is great because it gets children moving around and experiencing learning in different environments. Using QR codes would defiantly enhance learning as it is so interactive and allows the children to experience a different type of learning while also incorporating the use of digital technologies.
The only issue I have with this QR code activity is that it took so long to create and ended up being a relatively short task, if I were to use this in a classroom I would need to make it so it lasted a reasonable amount of time. If you have the time to plan a lesson with QR codes then it can be a really useful and fun activity to do with a class, hopefully I will be able to use QR codes and create a similar activity for a class of my own.
REFERENCES
Beauchamp, G. (2012) ICT in the Primary Classroom: From Pedagogy top Practice. Pearson.
Education Scotland (2010) Curriculum for Excellence Through Outdoor Learning. [pdf] Available: http://moodle1819.uws.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/39956/mod_resource/content/3/cfeoutdoorlearningfinal_tcm4-596061%20copy.pdf [Accessed 19 March 2019]
Professional Learning Board (2013) How can I use QR codes to Enhance Learning in the Classroom? [Online] Available: https://k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com/tlb/how-can-i-use-qr-codes-to-enhance-learning-in-the-classroom/ [Accessed 19 March 2019]
Scottish Government (n.d). Curriculum for Excellence. [pdf] Available: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/All-experiencesoutcomes18.pdf [Accessed 19 March 2019]
