Displaying Digital Work Using QR Codes

My students do a lot of work on the Google Apps and other online platforms.  A LOT.   And while that is all fine and dandy (believe me when I tell you that I wouldn't have it any other way), it leaves my bulletin boards a bit, shall we say, lacking.

I mean, I can print things out to post on a board, and I do.  But when the students are using an amazing interactive program like Thinglink, which requires the viewer to click on various items the student input, a flat 2-D version of it, without all the interaction, just doesn't show off how awesome the final product really is.  Or when they create a multi-page Slide presentation with links to outside websites, a printed version just doesn't translate well to a bulletin board.    Something invariably gets lost when it goes from computer screen to printer paper.  Additionally, because the kids are doing so much online, it just isn't feasible, or preferable, to print every.single.thing out. So, while my students are completing an incredible amount of work, the average visitor walking in has no idea it all even exists.

To combat this, I taught my students how to make QR codes.  They are super easy to create.  All it takes is a free QR code creator program (there are SO many available online, I used QR Encoder and added it to the iMacs in the computer lab.)  Using that creator, the students needed to copy and paste the link to their work and then a QR code was created.  They then downloaded the code as a png into their Google drive or just copied it to the clipboard.

Obviously this would be your kids' work, not my store ;)

*  One note here:  my students had to change the permissions on their Google docs and slides so that anyone with a link could view.  It previously had been set for the district to see it only.  Sharing with parents and administrators necessitated this.  Just check the permissions on your students' work as well if you plan to do this. *

Next, the students created a Google Slide.  I had them take a selfie first and place that in the center of their slide.  Next, the kids started adding in the QR codes.  The kids played around with the sizes of the codes, labeling them, choosing the fonts, etc.   I let them be pretty free form with this.  I only required that they had somewhere between 6 and 9 codes on the sides of their selfie.  

After, I had them print these out, we backed them and hung them on the wall.  Then, anyone who walked into our room could whip out their phones (or the iPad I had placed next to the display) and see the work.  It had the added benefit of just looking cool hanging in the room.   Every few months the students would revisit their codes and update them with new work they wanted to show off.  I reprinted them and added those on top of the existing display. 

I included a pic of my example one because I didn't want to share my students' (with their pics and work on them) however, if you imagine mine with a kid and backed, that is basically what it looked like :)  

And that was it.  This did take a while to finish, as kids don't really copy and paste links all that fast ;)  However, I find the time to be very worth it!