Students in Lufkin are enjoying a much more technology friendly experience in their lessons.
Students across the Lufkin district in Texas took part in a Digital Learning Day, which allowed them to learn about how to use a popular type of mobile devices to be able to scan QR codes in order to gain more information through the use of technology.
The students discovered how mobile gadgets could read the quick response codes.
According to Jaren Chavros, a student at Dunbar, “A QR Code without the devices, it just looks like black dots, but the devices can scan and all the little dots are like words for the device.” The students learned how to use common mobile devices to scan QR codes and open up a range of information. In this case, it was presented to them in the form of clues that were critical to moving forward in a recycling scavenger hunt.
The QR codes were seen as a great opportunity to help to bring together technology and a lesson in recycling.
According to Summer Garcia, the LISD technology specialist, “I thought it would be a great way to integrate what they are doing with recycling and something they could easily use with the devices they were bringing.”
Once the students used the mobile devices to scan the quick response codes, they would receive the clue that they would need to head off to the next among the five different stops – the first among which was the playground. Finally, when they had completed the scavenger hunt, they had the opportunity to show adults what they had discovered along the way.
Although the program was available to children from the second grade and up, Garcia acknowledged that they could have started younger as kids before that age are already well aware of how to use those mobile devices and could quickly learn how to scan QR barcodes.
By the time the children had scanned the QR codes and learned all of the recycling lessons from the scavenger hunt, they were then keen to share what they had discovered with their parents, spreading the word even further.
These quick response codes can help items to find their way back to their owners.
A startup company called My Lost Property has now been created by the parents of a boy who needed a way to find items that had gone missing, using inexpensive QR codes to make sure that belongings didn’t have to be replaced.
The last straw occurred when the son of the creators – the Sheedy family – lost his school blazer that cost $250.
Spencer Sheedy and his wife Rita recognized that while it is frustrating that their own two kids always had their possessions go missing, their children were far from the only ones who had this happen. It was this realization that encouraged the couple to create My Lost Property. Though the concept is quite simple as it is based on the use of QR codes, it is more innovative than simply using stickers and iron-on labels.
These QR codes are each unique and are registered on a website so that when the item is found it can be returned.
A missing item’s quick response code can be scanned by someone who finds it. They can then enter the location of the item, which will be automatically texted to the parents so that a pick-up can be arranged. The original concept had involved only stickers for the Sheedy kids. However, it didn’t take long before they found themselves creating labels, keyrings, stickers, and other barcodes for friends. Soon, it became evident that they had a business.
Since then, Mr. Sheedy had brought his barcodes and My Lost Property idea to the local schools. He has managed to create a sponsorship arrangement through Schoolzine, which is an online company that produces bulk school newsletters. According to Sheedy, “Schools have been really responsive. They like the simplicity of it, and lost property is such a problem for them.” He explained that he just wants parents to be able to find out about it.
The Sheedy’s knew that they could solve a very expensive problem for many parents and children with the simplicity and ease of QR codes. “When that $250 blazer went missing, we thought we needed to do something more than just the hit-and-miss putting a name on there and hoping it will come back. This just gives you a bit more of a chance of it coming back,” said Mr. Sheedy.
