Martin. rowling. kipling. marks. tolkien. sebold. scott fitzgerald. hosseini. collins. martel.
digitized
Not more than a few years ago, the world went crazy over the mysterious invention of QR Codes. What are they? What do they do? How can I use them? But all of a sudden, they’ve essentially disappeared, somewhat like the fashion fad (and major disaster of the early noughties) - the dreaded poncho. If you didn’t know, a Quick-Response Code is something similar to a barcode except it can be read horizontally as well as vertically. This small square of black and white mush holds and distributes information when it is scanned with a reading device (generally found on your phone). They hold a ton more information than the old barcodes, take up less space and look a little better too! What’s not to love? Well, many things apparently. Other than the fact that nobody owns the correct scanning facility without taking specific time to download, some directing you to websites non mobile-user-friendly or being placed in an area with no wifi spots, the system is just too slow (Strout, A. 2013). There is a definite and trending proof that QR codes are going down in the world though. According to a comScore report, ’as the number of smartphone users continues to rise, the number of consumers scanning QR codes remains the same’ (MarketingCharts staff. 2013). (Shown in Fig.1). However, whilst doing some research on these… gadgets(?), I’ve discovered a really interesting medium that they can be used with. Education. Children of all ages, these days from birth, are living in a primarily digital world. My cousin at the age of two knew what she was doing on an iPad better than I did! So why not implement these into schooling systems?
An interesting paper published by the University of Bath suggests using them to gain feedback about a course or to collect real-time results for surveys (Ramsden, A. 2008). This alone could radicalise the way we look at researching and feedback as it is instantaneous and can be stored as a live and up-to-date set of results. This concept is such a good one and makes a lot of sense when moving forward into this digital age. Have we missed the trick? With QR codes already into ‘Slope of Enlightenment’ in 2011 (Gartner. 2011), no one really gave them a proper chance to thrive and find their groove in the industry. As I am currently still in education and I still haven't seen them used in my lectures, I guess we will have to just wait and see if they still have the strength to push their way through the foggy digital print into the bright light of a classroom. Bibliography Arseneault, L. (2012). What you should know about QR code hype. Available at: http://cafelina.me/2012/01/25/what-you-should-know-about-qr-code-hype/ [Accessed 11th October 2014]. Educational Publishers. (2010). QR codes in education. Available at: http://www.bbcactive.com/BBCActiveIdeasandResources/QRcodesineducation.aspx [Accessed 11th October 2014]. MarketingCharts staff. (2013). Data dive: QR codes. Available at: http://www.marketingcharts.com/online/data-dive-qr-codes-29525/ [Accessed 11th October 2014]. Ramsden, A. (2008). The use of QR codes in education: A getting started guide for academics. Working paper. University of Bath. (Unpublished) Available at: http://opus.bath.ac.uk/11408/1/getting_started_with_QR_Codes.pdf [Accessed 11th October 2014]. Strout, A. (2013). The death of the QR code. Available at: http://marketingland.com/the-death-of-the-qr-code-37902 [Accessed 11th October 2014]. Timbrell, N. (2014). New technology and publishing. U65025 [Online]. Oxford Brookes University. Available at: https://moodle.brookes.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/491274/mod_resource/content/5/U65025TechnologyPublishing.pdf.
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