QR Codes--Be the First on Your Block to Use Them with Your Students

Have you seen any of these little squares in magazines or on products? (If not, you will now--they're starting to crop up everywhere.) What you've got here is a QR code. All you need now is a QR reader app on your phone and you can scan the code to get information (e.g. a web address, a phone number, or just some informational text). On his Thinking Stick blog, Jeff Utech declared 2011 the year of the QR code back in 2010. After reading his post I started thinking about lots of different uses for teachers and students. For instance, what if at the bottom of all the handouts you included a QR code that directed students to your SWIFT site? What if student artwork in the hallways included a QR code that provided more information about the art and the artist?

Interested? Start by reading Utech's post--he tells you how to make one (it's EASY!) and then check out this ever-expanding list of ways to use them in education being put together by Tom Barrett. Then, come back here and share an idea for how to use them with your students. (Don't forget, if you want to earn clock hours, make sure to include your first and last name AND (CH) after your name so we give you credit.)

Using Online Word Cloud Generators to Help Students See Inside a Text

Many of you may already know about Wordle, an online word cloud generator, but you might still be wondering how you could use it to help your students learn. This blog post from the UK's Guardian Datablog shows how one person got inside the State of the Union speeches of several different presidents.  One can easily imagine a social studies teacher asking his/her students to compare speeches. But can you imagine an easier, more elegant, or engaging way to do it than what's displayed here? I can already hear lots of interesting ideas filling a room where a teacher posted these examples and simply asked, "What do you notice?" followed by "What do you think that tells us?"

Making a Wordle is pretty easy, but if you want to see how it's done, you can watch this little video demo:

Making a Wordle from 10Tech on Vimeo.

Take a couple minutes to peruse the blog post, then come back and post your ideas here. What two (or more) texts could you "wordlize" for your students? What do you think the impact would be on student understanding of the texts? (Remember, everybody is encouraged to leave their two cents' worth below by posting a comment, but if you want clock hours, make sure you post your name with a (CH) after it.)