![\"5](\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/montpelieru32-150x150.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nIf you have a phone, iPad or tablet with a QR-scanning app installed (we like\u00a0Barcode Generator\/Reader for Android<\/a>, and Scan for iOS<\/a>) open it up and center your cross-hairs on the image above.<\/p>\n QR codes can link to websites, event notices, coupons, blog-posts, podcasts — if it’s online, you can embed it. The QR code above links to a particularly compelling documentary video made by Montpelier’s U32 students, about school consolidation in Vermont<\/a>, but that’s a story for another time.<\/p>\n But with QR codes becoming near-ubiquitous in our everyday environment,\u00a0how can you make them new again?<\/p>\n Here are 5 off-beat ways to use QR codes in your classroom.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n QR codes don’t have to be just ink on a page. The technology behind them is simple: the computer is looking for areas that it can identify as “dark” and ones it can identify as “light”. At the Middle Grades Institute\u00a0this summer we made QR codes with M&Ms<\/a> on giant sheets of white paper, but other people have made them with hard candy<\/a>, cookies<\/a>, pumpkins<\/a> and pizza<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sure the results may disappear in a flurry of snarfing, but what better way to encode a nutrition lesson in the final product?<\/p>\n Imagine making a scavenger hunt where each clue could be found by scanning a student’s QR code image, revealing something about the student, along with the original photo.<\/p>\n1. Build yummy, yummy QR codes<\/h3>\n
![\"5](\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/qrcodeinstagram-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>2. Make soft and squishy\u00a0QR codes<\/h3>\n
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![\"5](\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/qrscarf-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>The knitting webzine Knitty published a pattern for knitting a QR code<\/a>\u00a0that could be incorporated into a class on local wool production — imagine scanning a QR code on a scarf and watching a video about where the wool was farmed!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
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![\"5](\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/qrcodequilt1-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>Imagine making a giant QR code quilt for your school. Everyone could sew one f”oursie” (quilting technical term — roll with it) and then join them together.\u00a0How about having everyone choose their own dark or light fabric to quilt with? And nothing speaks of the intangibles of\u00a0collaboration like physically sewing together artifacts created by separate teams or classes or grade levels into one piece of art for the whole school community to enjoy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/h3>\n
3.\u00a0Take QR science to heart<\/h3>\n
![\"5](\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/qrcodeanatomy-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>Idea! Have students interact with anatomy\u00a0models by scanning QR codes taped to them and watching videos showing the organs in action.<\/p>\n\u00a04. Make QR codes that don’t look like QR codes at all<\/h3>\n
![\"5](\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/qraudrey-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>QR codes no longer have to look like black and white squares. There are a number of tools out there that take an ordinary picture and map a QR code over the top of it. Scan\u00a0the image at the left, or click through to see what the image looked like before we ran it through a custom image QR coder.<\/a><\/p>\n5. Program\u00a0your own QR code with LEDs<\/h3>\n
![\"5](\"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/codeyourownqr-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>Via Instructibles again (love that site!), here’s instructions for programming micro-processors called arduinos to light up certain LEDs in a matrix. Probably more of a project for your after-school club or makerspace, it’s still undeniably cool. How about a group of students tackling a way to build this as an installation for a family night or community event? How amazing would it be if visitors could enter a URL at one end and watch the LEDs change in response at the other?<\/p>\n