QR Codes: Usable Information Instead of Pedagogical Blather (Lesson One)

I must first thank the greatest librarian in the state of New York, Nicole Chase-Iverson, for inspiring me to use this format for more than self-aggrandizing, pedagogical numbskullery.

 QR, or quick response codes are everywhere and have been for a number of years now.  One of the two best librarians in Alaska, Nicole Roohi, got me interested in QR codes two years ago and we pondered how we could take these to a level that would benefit students both for access to information and preparing them for an innovative work force.

We started with examining how they were being used in industry and commercial products.  At first, what we found was staggeringly unimaginative.  The purpose of a code on a Pepsi cup at a theatre taking the patron to a Pepsi home page destroyed much hope for this new communication device.  I still look forward to the theatre industry placing codes on the popcorn and soda packages designed for specific films that take patrons to the trailer of the film they came to see as an appetizer to the main course of the film.  An even more exciting concept for nerds such as myself would be the first release of a trailer to the film's sequel.  That would make me, the patron, feel special in a very marketable way.  I would buy every popcorn with a movie poster on it to be a part of the elite first audience of upcoming films.  But alas, poor trailers, I know you not.

As one can see from the above video, good ideas were forming, but the medium had other challenges besides an incredible lack of marketing creativity in large firms.  QR readers were sketchy at best in the beginning.  One would need an incredibly steady hand and smartphone cameras were still dodgy in megapixel abilities.  Codes needed a large amount of space and one would need close proximity.  These challenges have since fallen to the wayside as Moore's Law has not let me down yet.

It was not until a year and a half ago when Jeremy Shulz, an acquaintance of mine and a friend of my brother, really inspired me to think heavily on the education opportunities presented by QR codes. Jeremy started R Evolution which places QR Codes onto band shirts which link the customer to a one-time download of the band's album.  This forward thinking and radical shift in product movement forces us to rethink the possibilites of this funny looking square in student communication and interaction.

The following posts are a collection of ideas and tried lessons using QR Codes in a variety of classrooms and other learning environments.  I will also post some that we have brainstormed for future trials, so if anyone has the ability and love of risk to try them out, please leave your experience, tips, and criticisms in the comments. After writing out the first two, I think I will post one every other day as to not inundate those actually interested.  The planning on some can seem daunting, but the payoff is worth every minute.

In The Writing Classroom: (Why teach everything to everyone?)

As an English teacher, grammar is my double-edged sword.  While I understand the beauty and purpose of students knowing language structure and gaining the ability to discuss language with the words relating to it, I also know they are bombarded with grammar every year in often boring and unimaginative direct instruction.  Do not think I am one of the folks denigrating the teaching of grammar, because that is the last message I want to send.  With the hot word "purpose" floating around the heads of wide-eyed administrators everywhere, it seems appropriate to put it to actual use.  This is how it works for me.

- I have a recipe box that sits on my desk.  It is organized in alphabetical order and each card has the name of an English concept written across the top from grammar rules all the way to essay structural concepts.  At the beginning of each year, I scour YouTube and its educational equivalents looking for videos related to common mistakes I see in my students' initial writing.  I then make a QR Code linking to each video, print it off, and glue it to its perspective recipe card.  One of my favorites over the last three years  is a semicolon explanation from "How to Write More Better-er".  I could take the time to make these videos myself, but there is no need as the internet is brimming with great clips that can help with education, even though most of our students would rather watch screaming goats or people eating cinnamon.

--Now all I have to do is read their writing.  When working in class and reading off paper copies or on the white boards and we spot one of many writing issues present itself, I can simply ask the writer to grab the needed recipe card, plug their headphones in, scan the code and get a personal lesson in a writing weakness specifically to them.  As most students cannot function without their smartphone for longer that twelve minutes anyway, I rarely need to bring out one of my own.

--This raises the question on whether this cheats other students from learning this valuable information.  What if they already know it?  My students also take assessments on the basics of language through google forms.  Our district has a package with access to many of the products through a district .net account.  I prefer the forms as I can require students sign in to take the assessment giving me a time stamp and name attached to the data.  (Note: If your district does not offer such a package, you can still make google forms through a gmail or google docs account.  I would make one separate for educational purposes and make sure your supervisor supports the idea.  You will not have the auto name functions offered in a package, but you could make the first question of every test asking students to type in their first and last names.  Teachers are smart; you will figure it out.  If you don't, ask me and I will help you and gladly talk to your supervisor about the benefits of such packages.) If you want a fabulous data collection tool on basic skills, forms works great.  If you do not have the excel skills to manipulate the data, you can find tips online or find an accountant.  They can manipulate data in excel in ways that make nerds a bit too giddy.  Ask one to teach you how and they will jump at the opportunity to share the hip secrets they have carried in the darkness of cubicle life for so long.  Once you have the data organized into a useful manner, it becomes easy to target the needs of individual students.  I then make myself a note to have those students see multiple clips explaining the concepts in a variety of delivery methods and check in on progress.  This frees up so much time in the classroom to move on with projects, discussions, and exciting and mind-blowing experiences.

--I also keep a table in my google docs with the same QR Codes from my desk lined up with the same title from the cards, as well as a third column with the URL addresses to the videos.  When writing in google docs, my students share me with edit and commenting privileges.  When I notice an issue I have a video for, I can highlight the section of text and link a comment on the side with both my notes and the direction to click on the link for further explanation.  (Ask me how and I will show you.) When a student fixes the problem with a comment, they mark resolved and I get a handy link in my inbox taking me directly to the problem area to check on revision and edit work.

--This seems like a lot of work, but if I work my basic skills lessons into actual writing that has meaning for the students and is an added piece to my curriculum, my time doubles in value and final drafts take less than a quarter of the time to read.

Next Post: QR Codes in the Library or Who the hell is Edmund Wilson?

21st Century Skills Chapter 2

Trilling and Fadel begin this chapter with a hint at what Michio Kaku (Physics of the Future) refers to as the time of abundance.  The team’s three generation analogy alludes to the journey towards this abundance as each generation builds upon the last generation’s accomplishments to further progress the system in which they belong.  One can take that generation a step further and mention that Lee’s young daughter is currently learning the programming skills necessary to utilize GPS systems and smart cars (for which prototypes already exist) to develop self driving systems which will eliminate accidents and lack of efficiency in daily driving.  Many of Kaku’s ideas speak to this chapter and I shall apply this lens to my project throughout this paper.  Speaking to this noted time of abundance, as we develop technologies that make the daily necessities of life easier to obtain, the ideas and thinking move into the realm of creation and solving more complicated problems which often result from the very fixes from the past.  It becomes a requirement at this point to shift our thinking to the building of ideas upon that base level rather than relearning the base level alone.  

Knowledge Work: (applied to energy project)

The start of our energy project next year lies in utilizing PBS Learning Media as an introduction to energy issues and technology.  The class as a whole will view and discuss several energy-based videos and each group will have other videos assigned to their groups for viewing, analysis, and utilization within their projected model.  This utilizes not only the ability to gather information from digital sources, but also incorporates the collaborative nature of group discussion and work on a shared topic or goal.  When we say 21st century student, many of us automatically think about the technology aspect and not the human interaction it has enabled and that we must recreate in person as well.  The school has offered our class a collaboration room where we will include space for groups to work as well as access internet-based learning spaces and Skype interviews with other students and professionals from their project area. Fadell mentions multinational corporations investing in development of teachers, and I wonder where they are as we hope to involve them in the class directly as well.  For this project, we have set up a meeting with the engineering department at Conoco Philips (meeting happened today; look for entry on it soon) to create a relationship based on this energy project linking students to engineers and technicians around the world with expertise in energy production and consumption.  We have also coordinated a meeting with a group of department leaders at Google via online meetings (also happened; update soon) to discuss the creation of digital workspaces custom built to the project’s needs including the groups themselves in the design process.  We are working on meetings with other energy and engineering companies to broaden the scope and create possible collaboration situations for these student groups.  Fadel and Trilling seem to support the idea of encouraging students not only to go through the motions of completing work, but also be involved in the planning and understanding of the infrastructure which supports learning in order to practice the innovation necessary to create those environments and settings in their own future endeavors.  

Thinking Tools: (applied to energy project)

One argument I have entered into over the last six years of my teaching is the argument over the use of mobile devices in the classroom.  I completely agree that the misuse of these devices wastes time and causes distraction within the class setting.  Then the person making this point checks their facebook page on their desktop, laptop, or iphone.  I find it ironic when this happens and when I point it out I am usually handed the age-old “I am an adult and a professional which earns me certain privileges” argument.  I disagree and feel that instead of battling an addiction to mobile media which adults also succumb to (one study indicates my age group utilizes them for viewing far more often than the teens we teach), we should instead simply show the amazing capabilities these devices have and how we can harness them to produce and not just consume.  With the addition of Google Glass over the next few years and the even more unobtrusive contact lens which Michio Kaku speaks of often, education and educators will be forced to not only rethink how we educate, but the very nature of assessment in general.  Standardized, single-answer tests will no long suffice on the measurement of abilities as, with a mere blink of an eye, students will access unlimited information in the very pupil of their eye.  We must instead change our focus to how to find information, judge its validity, and utilize it and other learned skills to solve complex problems with a variety of options for solving.  The project hopes to mirror this concept as it asks students to collaborate, research, validate, propose solutions, test solutions, and present findings on a problem rather that simply reading a concept and answering questions based on whether or not the material was read.  The research component will reside in books, magazines, websites, and interviews and meetings with field professionals via Skype, Google+ For Education, and Facetime. Students conducting this research and creating these learning environments helps them prepare for the innovation and adaptability the future job markets demand.  On a side note, I love that the authors mention Moore’s law without mentioning the law itself.  I do wonder why they don’t delve into this topic a bit as, just like students, the more teachers know about the concepts we are learning about, the better we can apply them to our own thinking.  

Digital Lifestyles:

This piece of the chapter really highlights the idea that the answer to teaching this generation is not based on having the newest gear and the knowhow to use it, but having the adaptability to understand that these students have a whole different sense of reality and understanding information than do their predecessors.  It reminds me of when my household bought our first family computer and hooked it to the internet.  Both my parents and my computer teachers at school fell to the same naive notion of technology and learning.  They put us in front of machines they did not understand themselves and expected us to teach ourselves and become intelligent in the ways they were.  We learned how to use computers and the internet, but to them we seemed slow in the areas they were expecting us to flourish in.  I find this similar with many teachers I work with even today.  They feel that finding the next program or the faster machine will directly impact how well their students learn their material, but this is a false notion often fed by a deeper need to feel supported through new media.  Both students and teachers need to be taught that the technology itself is only a tool to help with the gaining of knowledge and skills and that a new management of learning must take place for those tools to become effective in education goals.  Many or most teachers truly realize this concept but are not often shown the extent of what the new technology can accomplish and do not have the proper support which leads them to want to take the risk needed to use it.  When we look at the bullet list on page 29, we can deconstruct the way to connect students to the skills we want them to have rather than relying on the machine as the fix to any situation. These highlight not the technology itself, but how it has shifted the needs of the students in learning situations.  

-Freedom: Students can navigate wherever they please on their own time. Bringing them into a situation telling them they must learn one concept in only one way with the same singular outcome will accordingly bore them to affectless numbness at school.  The answer is not to cut them loose with no guidance as they will inevitably accomplish little to no work towards the standards or goals of the assignment.  The answer is for instructors to put in the planning to give students a choice of real problems to solve with not already planned answers and guide them through their efforts with the skills needed and standard skills teachable in the given set of choices.  

-Customization: As students customize their own web-based portfolios through facebook, twitter, and instagram, they develop the habit of selling themselves and their talents in the forms they choose.  As we continue to move toward a more producer-based web, this will only grow within our students.  Again, the planning of the teacher comes into play when designing assignments (projects) and assessments.  Up front planning creates an environment where students can show what they know through the mediums they work best in.  This also demands malleability of the instructor in the skills of developing choices which work for both the student and the teacher for the evidence of learned skills and information.  

-Scrutiny: This comes to questioning.  The “me-me-me generation” has no subculture as they do not recognize a general culture surrounding them.  This is an obvious step from the social revolution grandparents fighting the culture of the time followed by the self-pitying-do-not-help-me generation X.  This new generation is accepting of people in general, but not of authoritative demands without evidence or reason.  In short, they question.  This questioning is a demand we should have and encourage in our students, but the teacher must be willing to be questioned as well. These students have very few secrets and therefor are more willing to pry into the reasons and details of many levels before the current system squashes the tendency instead of feeding it.  

-Integrity and Openness: Through videos, pictures, tweets, and status updates, students live their lives in the open.  Many of their current pop-culture heroes came to fame simply through the ability to openly share their faults and accomplishments on line for the world to see.  They expect the same from the adults in their lives.  Creating an environment where students feel that they can be open as well as expect the others in the room to do likewise, including the instructor.  Too many times, the separation of the teacher from the students as one sitting higher on a social ladder creates a sense of separation and distrust in the learning environment.  While we as an older generation may have more respect for privacy and “keeping up appearances”, our students wear their lives on their sleeves.  We must create a space where that is welcome and not judged too harshly when we deem information unsatisfactory.  

Entertainment: This is a no-brainer and older than this generation for sure.  We like to play.  We like to laugh.  We like to be intrigued, excited, and entertained.  The world of sit down, shut up, and learn from the boring guy in the tie can no longer exist with our students.  Just what stops us as instructors from putting in the planning time to make our lessons more entertaining and engaging for our students?  We must also take feedback from our students on the effectiveness of that planning by paying attention to them as the lesson unfolds.  Are they sleeping or are their eyes wide with anticipation of the next step?  Living by that idea creates a class all students are excited to attend. 

-Collaboration:  Students’ lives are lived and determined by the opinions and affections of those around them.  Why not take advantage of that fact by creating an environment which mutual respect and friendship as they would want to work together simply to be around each other?  This is easy to achieve again by taking time to design positive situations where students and instructors interact towards similar goals and the event is a team event rather than individual battles.  

-Speed: Teachers must connect with students outside of the forty-five minutes a day they see them.  The class should maintain a twitter account for the purposes of class.  Sending out a cool fact at random times shows students that the information is not just what they are mandated to learn, but helpful, fun and useful in all aspects of life.  

-Innovation: One could never overstate the importance of innovation in the future work place.  Every major corporation and learning genius understands and professes the need for students to be innovative and imaginative.  Why then do we inhibit it through the worksheet culture of fact pushing within concrete prisons seated at standardized work-spaces?  This will not be addressed by so-called education reformers and the only answer is for teachers to scoff at the data-driven reformation and instead reform from within and let the data do the talking later.  By planning and taking the steps necessary to contain the above principles and apply the skills needed to them, we can simply pass by any standardized test with ease as a moment of annoyance in our otherwise exhilarating class experience. 

Learning Research:

This section is clear and needs little discussion.  I wonder though why it needs discussion at all in the profession as the issues within the section seem common sense.  They speak to all previous discussion and only add to say that time should be taken to discuss what we are doing and why in the sense of how we learn.  I shall now move directly to the Top Challenge as the rest speaks to the previous statements. 

Top 21st Century Challenge:

The authors again note that problem solving and the abilities to do so are where our education system should focus while building solid foundations in core subjects.  The question for us as educators is how to accomplish this monumental task.  I argue through this project is to introduce them to the task of solving these problems now.  Have them enter the discussion and take on the tasks while they are safe to fail and rebuild ideas.  The test of the 21st century teacher will be to plan and integrate the skills and information required by standardization into the process of teaching 21st century skills.  It is on the shoulders of the instructor.  

Solving Tomorrow’s Problems: A year-long project learning proposal with goals of building innovation, teamwork, and global community interaction. 

This proposal stems from two definitive moments in the last year of my life.  One is the the winning of third place in the PBS Innovation Awards and my driving goal to win first place next year to gain the opportunity to meet the top innovators of our nation at the Henry Ford Innovation conference of 2014.  I cannot sit back and pretend it is not part of the driving force behind this project as my goals are not only for my students but for the opportunity to share my vision of education with larger communities and bring the factory system to its knees. The second moment is the opening of the text, 21st Century Skills, which tends to not only support many of the ideas I use to design my own classroom, but also introduces much more for me to build upon as I move forward.  Many other texts will make themselves known through this process and will not be limited to print media by any means.  I look forward to comments and offers of expertise along the way.  I am but one man.   

I propose to create a year-long assignment opportunity for students to identify, analyze, collaborate on, and propose an evidence-based innovative solution to a current or foreseeable energy problem facing the global community.  Not only must they propose a solution, but they must have created a model (experiment) testing their proposal on a scaled setting.  This project yearns to connect with not only the core subject areas of the students involved by incorporating the experimental design through the scientific method, the computation of data through mathematics, the social ramifications of energy production and consumption throughout history and what those lessons mean to the planning of proposals now, the dissemination of all data, analysis, and conclusions through digital means of publication in clear and concise language which both captivates and informs the target audience as well as the general public; but it also desires to include as many of our students’ elective classes as possible through hands on manipulation of materials, media presentation, and the use of arts as media tools and vehicles for mass communication of proposed ideas.  In short, this project will be run as a serious attempt to propose a solution to a problem on a mass level. 

After reading the prologue, the introduction, and chapter one of Tilling and Fadel’s book, I feel there are a number of areas that help drive the idea of this project forward as well as some moments that speak to the reason more teachers do not take innovative risks in their classrooms.  On page xvi of the forward to the paperback edition, the authorial team treats us to the known and understandable statement that, “transforming education systems is very hard work, demanding consistent, long-term commitments to changing learning approaches-a consistency that must survive shifts in politics and administrations” (Fadel  xvi).  This rings true in theory, but what if those political shifts focus much of their attention on where they think education should be?  We have witnessed in the last two decades, movement in a completely opposite direction in education from where Trilling and Fadel, as well as other brilliant minds in education and the future economy such as Sir Ken Robinson in his speeches and writings on education in its current form, not limited to the following: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms.html as well as: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html.  Both of these moments highlight the text’s point of leaving the industrial age and moving into the age of creativity and trade in knowledge, yet the political machine fueled by global competition for data regurgitation and the lobby of testing companies continues to act as the driving force behind education policy.  Just as the idea of a factory-based economy in the United States is no longer conceivable or effective, training our students in mundane, repetitive tasks at specific ages seems not only ridiculous, but borderline insane. 

So we now boldly enter a new era as instructors with the knowledge that our students will not only need to understand basic concepts such as mathematics and communication, but that they will also need to understand how to solve new problems whether species survival related or how to market products in an ever-changing media market.  This concept is nothing new, although each generations feels they are encountering history’s greatest hurdles during their own time.  Problem solving has always been the root of learning.  How do we make our lives easier so that we can accomplish more in our short time on the planet?  From the moment flint struck the first man-made flame to the now developing medical equipment based on the TriCorder of Star Trek, a force stronger than mere collecting of data allows humanity to constantly strive and build upon already attained knowledge.  Our students will not need to figure out or even consciously understand the coded workings of cloud computing when they enter the job market, they will simply need to know how to use it rather than how it works.  This opens the discussion that we must shift our teaching focus onto the ability to solve future problems using the knowledge we have and in that create new levels of knowing and understanding.  This inevitably leads us into motivators.  

Our world faces dilemmas, if not major obstacles, when it comes to our energy future.  While some nations revel in their access to inexpensive energy, some are just now realizing the power of cheap and available energy, and others are still stagnant in both economic and world political arenas.  As students enter my pod next year, they will be randomly placed into groups of six.  Each group will have one week to choose from a list of energy challenges either currently faced by a society on Earth or a problem easily seen in the near future.  Research and meetings have begun in order to generate the list and provide the support that groups will need on the project.  As these assignments come in, the development will reveal itself.  The purpose of handing students real-world problems with no concrete solutions at this time works in relation to Daniel Pink’s statements on human motivation.  Pink States, “Most of us believe that the best way to motivate ourselves and others is with external rewards like money. [Or maybe grades Ed.] That’s a mistake. . . The secret to performance and satisfaction — at work, at school, and at home — is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world” (Drive).  Problems of this magnitude will allow students to attack real and substantial material and whether they figure out a fix to a problem or not, they will get the satisfaction of working on a level most have not given them a chance to work on before.