How To Create QR Codes To Use In Your Classroom

What are QR Codes and How Can I Use them in my Classroom? 

A QR Code is a type of barcode that is readable by dedicated QR barcode readers and camera telephones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded may be text you want students to read, websites, or video.

Ideas For The Classroom

A very quick way to incorporate QR codes in your classroom is to simply create a QR code so students can get to a website quickly and efficiently.  How many times have you written a website on the board for your students to go to and you get 10 students saying that they can’t get to the website because they have typed it incorrectly?  

I love creating bookmarks for my students with QR codes so that it takes them to todaysmeet or maybe a padlet wall that I have created for students to share their thinking. 

All I do is create a bookmark in Word or Pages with the information I want the students to have and insert the QR code into the document.  Then I print it for my students to use. 

Along the same lines, I have used QR codes for a KWL chart, where students scan the code, it takes them to a Padlet wall where they can add their knowledge, their 

wonders and their learning to 3 separate walls with 3 

separate QR codes.  

How about using QR codes in your classroom library books?  Little learners love to open a favourite book and see a QR code to scan that takes them to a Youtube video that sings their favourite book. Or better yet, older students could create book trailers so other students could watch their book trailer to get a glimpse of what the book is about.  I also use the audio boo app to have children record themselves reading a story and create a QR code of the audio so others can listen to the book by their fellow classmates.

Do your students do literacy or math stations?  Their are infinite possibilities to use them in this way.  Here are a few that I have pinned from Pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/mrswideen/qr-codes/

How The Heck Do I Create A QR Code?

First, you can use an app or a website to create your QR code.

I personally use QR Stuff http://www.qrstuff.com to create my QR codes.  It is free and easy to use, but there are many free sites you can use.

You have many choices on what to link your QR code to.  I mainly connect my QR codes to either a URL (website) or plain text (words or phrases). 

If you are connecting to a website, all you do is copy the URL you want to use and paste in the designated area and the site generates a URL.  You can download the QR code or I take a screenshot of the code and insert it into the document I am creating.  Or I will use the print option that I LOVE because there are so many print options right from the site. 

Now that you have your QR codes created, all you have to do is download a QR reader onto your devices.  I personally use Qrafter on all of the iPads in my classroom.  It works well and it’s Free!

All you have to do is start creating!  Let me know if you have anymore questions or leave a link to a QR code activity you have created.