By Helen Crompton, Jason LaFrance, and Mark van ‘t Hooft
QR Codes 101
QR codes are a fast, easy, free, and fun way to spice up your lesson plans
and school communication by linking the brick-and-mortar world to
the digital domain. If you’re not using them in your classroom yet,
here’s a primer and some inspiring ideas to get you started.
One hot July afternoon, a teacher was leading a group of ninth grade students on a
tour of the World War II memorial
in Washington, D.C., methodically
stopping at each part of the monu-
ment while lecturing about its his-
torical highlights. Unfortunately for
the teacher, his students were highly
distracted by another tour that was
visiting the monument at the same
time. Those adult tour participants
weren’t following around a typical
tour guide but instead consulted their
own mobile devices and small book-
lets. As they reached different parts of
the memorial, they used their phones
to scan quick-response (QR) codes
that linked to supplementary histori-
cal videos, WWII radio broadcasts,
and webpages with related informa-
tion. The adults were very engaged
in completing learning tasks that
required them to access various parts
of the monument, much like a scav-
enger hunt. They didn’t need to stay
together as one large, unwieldy group,
but instead moved around in small
groups and at their own pace. They
could even revisit some sections or
replay audio or video clips as needed
to complete their tasks.
What Is a QR Code?
A QR code is a two-dimensional
scannable code, similar in function
to a traditional bar code that you
might find on a product at the supermarket. The main difference between the two is that, while a traditional bar code can hold a maximum
of only 20 digits, a QR code can hold
up to 7,089 characters, so it can contain much more information.
As you can see here, QR codes
are shaped like a square made of a
combination of black and white pixels. The smaller squares in the three
corners of the code make it readable
from any angle.
QR codes can contain a variety
of different types of data, including:
• Text, such as a short message
or contact details
• URLs to websites or multimedia
content, such as videos
• Coordinates on a map
• A phone number or text contact
QR codes embed more than 350 times as
much information as the old-fashioned bar
codes that retail and grocery stores use.
Scan this one to watch a video of SIGML’s 2009 mobile scavenger hunt at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.
The booklet that SIGML
provided to participants
to guide them through
the WWII Memorial
tour included QR codes
like this one, which links to a recording of
Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Day of Infamy
speech, to provide background on each
part of the monument.
