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5 Presentation Lessons From The King’s Speech
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QR Codes
What is a QR Code?
It’s a kind of bar code that encodes information in a square like the one you see to the left, which is a QR Code for this website. “QR” stands for “Quick Response.” You can learn more about these codes at Wikipedia.
How can I read them?
These codes can be read by cell phones, so you will need an application. I found a list of QR Readers here, and if you have an iPhone or an Android, you can search their app stores for QR Code Readers. I use an app called Red Laser (iTunes link) to read QR Codes.
What can you do with QR Codes?
I’ve been learning about them for a couple of months, and while I can’t claim I have an exhaustive list of ideas for how to use them, I have a few.
- Put them on handouts or make stickers for textbooks. Students can scan the codes to learn more information about any topic. You can embed links to any website. Yes, you can also include the URL, but the QR Code will allow students to scan the code and go directly to the site.
- Put them on displays and signs around the school so students can learn more. Example: A scholarship contest sign could have contact information or a link to the website embedded. Students can quickly scan the code, and take the information with them more easily and quickly.
- Put them next to student work in the hallways and link them to text that tells viewers more about the artist and the work. Sure, you can display a block of text, too, but you have more options with QR Codes (links to other media, etc.). For example, you could include a link to a video in which the student is interviewed about their work, which is harder to do with a bit of text on the wall.
- Add them to large maps. Students can scan them and be directed to Wikipedia articles or other websites where they can learn more about the area. For example, putting a QR Code on a map of Georgia next to Milledgeville could bring up a list of writers from that town. You could also link to GoogleMaps so students could zoom around and explore the area in more detail or to images of people or events in the area. Videos, too.
- Encode answers to the assignment so students can check their work when they’re done. Perhaps the extra step of decoding the QR Code will be enough for students to try it out first before checking.
- Use them in scavenger hunts. Students can be directed to different websites and complete different tasks.
- Have students use them to turn in work. It would be great for multimedia projects incorporating video, audio, blogs, and images.
Jeff Utecht also has some great ideas for using QR Codes. I love the idea he shares about putting QR Codes on books. Students can be directed to reviews. QR stickers on books might be a fun way of sharing an assignment, such as a literature circle role.
Check out this great LiveBinder on QR Codes.
I have to admit, it’s kind of fun to take images of QR Codes and see what will pop up. Which also means they can be used by students for more nefarious purposes, so you should be aware of them for that reason, too.
How can you make them?
Kaywa has a great QR Code generator. Give it a try.
What if you don’t have mobile devices, or what if they’re banned in your school?
2010
I have never been much of a fan of New Year’s Eve. I think it’s the grandmother of all parties, and I just don’t like parties. I know that makes me weird. I don’t like going out on New Year’s Eve, and I never have understood why it’s such a big celebration.
Reflection, on the other hand, I understand.
I had a pretty good 2010. I earned my master’s in Instructional Technology from Virginia Tech. I presented at a national conference for the first time and was asked to present again next year. I was named GCTE Secondary Teacher of the Year and NCTE Teacher of Excellence. Professionally, I accomplished more this year than I have any other year. I also read more books than I have in any other year. I went on a trip to Salem, MA. I made some new friends. My friendships with others deepened. I’m looking forward to doing more this year, and I hope it will be a good one. I do have some dreams and goals that remain unaccomplished, and this year feels like a good one to get rolling on them. After all, I’ll be turning 40 in September, and one thing I won’t have is more time.
photo credit: Stuck in Customs
Diigo Links (weekly)
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“I just heard a great idea for a year-end book group meeting. Book Swap.
Encourage everyone to come to the next discussion with a favorite book they are willing to part with. Readers do book talks, giving a summary of the plot and characters, and then ask them to talk about the most appealing aspects of the book and compare it to something else.
How to fairly distribute? After the book talks, put all the books on the table in the middle, have attendees pull numbers out of a hat and choose in order. Or hearken back to your elementary school days, put all the books in a big, colorful bag, and have each person pull one out without looking. Book Grab Bag.”
Why Fiction Matters
Grant Wiggins made a lot of waves yesterday with a post the ASCD blog The Edge in which he calls for banning the reading of fiction in schools in order to encourage boys to read and help students improve nonfiction reading skills. He says he wrote meaning to provoke, and he certainly did. The blog doesn’t provide a means of linking to comments, but I felt a voice of reason in those comments was Estelene Boratenski. She’s right in pointing out that people listen to Wiggins, and it wasn’t clear that he was writing in the spirit of A Modest Proposal. I don’t have a lot to add to the public outcry.
If you have read any of my archives, you know I’ve long been a proponent of backward design. It just makes sense pedagogically. Wiggins and writing partner Jay McTighe wrote about backward design in Understanding by Design, which remains the single most influential professional reading I’ve ever done. Wiggins was very kind to my readers and to the participants at the UbD Educators wiki. For a short period of time, I blogged with Grant at a now-defunct group blog about educational matters. I have the highest respect for Grant Wiggins.
I also have the highest respect for fiction’s ability to teach us about who we are. I think one thing we need to do to engage boys in high school reading is to offer them choices, but one cannot generalize that boys necessarily like nonfiction more than fiction, and I have known boys who have enjoyed reading such fare as Wuthering Heights, Beloved, and The Scarlet Letter. I think a lot of fiction isn’t taught in a way that necessarily grabs boys, and that’s where backward design comes in. It gives the literature teacher a hook—an issue the novel grapples with that makes for interesting discussion. It is for this reason that one of the essential questions that frames discussion in my classroom for the year in my British Literature and Composition course is How do our stories shape us? How do we shape the world around us with stories?
I wouldn’t argue that we currently incorporate enough nonfiction into our curricula. I think nonfiction is important. I also don’t quibble with the idea that we need to do something to get boys to read. Guys Read is on to something there, I think. I also don’t argue about the fact that we need to examine the choices we make in terms of what books are taught. But I don’t think throwing fiction out the window is the solution.
Literature, fiction, shows us who we are. It teaches us about the human condition. In the words of Hemingway, arguably that most male of writers, “All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and the afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse, and sorrow, the people and places and how the weather was.”
That, to me, seems to be the best reason to teach fiction.
photo credit: Felipe Morin
Diigo Links (weekly)
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How to Use QR Codes in Student Projects – SimpleK12
Scannable bar codes may be just what you need to spark some student interest in your classroom – read on to learn how to use them to showcase your student work and give some life to your classroom’s infographics.
The Kids are All Right
I just came across this tweet by Jim Burke:
I feel the same way. I love to hear from students, both current and former about the great things they’re doing out there in the world. Jeremy came by the school to visit last week and told me about his work with the Wilderness Society. He’s been blogging with them at WildernessU-Georgia. You can learn more about him by clicking on their About page. They don’t have posts tagged by author, but if scroll a bit, you can find some of his posts. Here are a few recent ones:
- Born Again: Caving in NW Georgia (Jeremy is pictured in the post—the young man on the far left in the image).
- Unconscious and Rescued at Sweetwater Creek State Park
- Save Our State Parks!
As his former English teacher, I’m thrilled he’s writing. He graduates from college this year, and I’m proud of him.
I shared Jake’s blog and wonderful photography with you recently, but here it is again, in case you missed it: Life of Jake. Jake is a gifted artist with that camera—something I didn’t know about him when he was my student, but I’ve been happy to discover it since then. He’s also an excellent writer and thinker.
Julian is really busy with college, but he blogs about GTD, organization, and productivity at 2WheeledLife. He has some helpful tips, and I have enjoyed discovering all he’s learned.
They are just beginning to go out into the world and do great things, but I’m really proud of them, and I will be interested to see what they do in the future. And I don’t worry too much about the future, because in the inimitable words of Who, “the kids are all right.” [Sorry for the paraphrase—I teach grammar and can’t write alright. See? Although I will voice my radical opinion that it should be standard when its cousins altogether and already are. Just saying.]
Delicious: What Went Wrong?
In the last few days, you’ve probably been hearing a lot about Delicious as a slide leaked from a Yahoo company meeting declared Delicious was one of the companies Yahoo planned to “sunset” or shut down. Now Delicious’s blog declares that Delicious will not shut down, but it will find a new home somewhere else. Delicious could be great, but it languished on Yahoo’s back burner. I know a lot of educators who used it to great effect, and even when I switched to Diigo, I didn’t close my Delicious account—I just set up Diigo so that it published my bookmarks to Delicious, too. I knew some folks subscribed to my bookmarks’ RSS feed in Delicious.
I started using Delicious in 2005 because at that time, I was having difficulty with Firefox randomly losing my bookmarks. I liked the idea that I could save my bookmarks somewhere else where Firefox couldn’t lose them. It has since become more stable in that regard, but I was hooked on social bookmarking by that time, and I still rarely use my browser bookmarking tool. I totally understand the irony of switching to Delicious so I didn’t keep losing my bookmarks, in case you were wondering. I switched to Diigo in 2009 largely because of a few more features it had that I liked. What makes both Delicious and Diigo great is the ability to share bookmarks. Silvia Tolisano uses Delicious. Until she started having trouble with the RSS feed updating multiple times when she posted bookmarks to her blog, she was sharing her finds by posting links saved in Delicious to her blog automatically (which is something you can also do with Diigo—I do it). Silvia shares some really amazing stuff, and I hate to think of that vast resource of hers disappearing into the ether. I really hope she switches to Diigo, so I can follow her there.
I think what went wrong with Yahoo and Delicious is that Yahoo didn’t understand Delicious’s potential. I told my husband when we were talking about it that the only Yahoo service that would generate a larger outcry if it were shut down is Flickr. I think it’s sad that Yahoo never “got” Delicious. I think Yahoo’s problem for years has been that they don’t understand the potential of the products they acquire and develop, and they focus on the wrong things. They’ve just laid off a large number of employees. This article notes that “This marks the fourth time in three years that Yahoo has resorted to mass firings to boost its earnings.” I think that strategy speaks for itself.
So what would I do if I still used Delicious? I’d switch to Diigo, but I would also try to figure out a way to prevent losing my bookmarks in the future should anything happen to Diigo. ReadWriteWeb has some good articles about the loss of Delicious:
Hero’s Journey Presentation
I am submitting a presentation proposal for NCTE 2011 on teaching the hero’s journey. I think the presentation would work well with the conference theme of “Reading the Past, Writing the Future.”
If you are interested in and knowledgeable about the hero’s journey, archetypes, and the like, I would like to invite you to present with me. If you are interested, please leave a comment or contact me via email on the contact page. We can talk further from there.
Update: Thanks for your interest. We have a group. Cross your fingers for us that our proposal will be accepted.
Diigo Links (weekly)
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How to Create Your First iPhone Application – Smashing Magazine
“This how-to guide is supposed to walk you through the steps to make your idea for an iPhone app a reality. This post presents various ideas, techniques, tips, and resources that may come in handy if you are planning on creating your first iPhone application.”