Interacting with Experts

[caption id="attachment_300" align="alignright" width="132" caption="Stuart"][/caption]

 

Interacting with experts is not something our students get to do every day, but an especially keen, risk-taking teacher that I work with showed me that it isn't that difficult any more.  In Mrs. Caskie's IB Language and Lit class, the students have been reading Stuart, by Alexander Masters....and then asking questions of the author.

Mrs. Caskie stumbled across Masters' blog and, on a whim,  asked if it was "okay" for students to write him and ask questions.  Then she asked her students to think about what they would want to ask the author as they read the book.  This was a theme that she kept repeating until she finally said, "then let's ask him - he's got a blog."  So they did.  And Masters has been responding to the questions one by one making this learning opportunity particularly personalized.

Mrs. Caskie is excited about how this interaction with the author might serve as a springboard for some creative written or oral tasks.  Some of the student generated ideas are:

• a transcript of a "lost tape" of Stuart's


• putting Masters on trial for exploiting the homeless/disabled person with students writing the court transcript, 


• a missing chapter - perhaps of when Stuart was young and happy


• a comparison piece with Masters and Orwell meeting up and discussing identity, culture and the idea of moving.   

As with most authentic tasks, the students have been engaged and motivated.  My own learning is not something new, but a reminder of just how powerful technology is - it can connect us with professionals.  In the case of these students, technology has given them the opportunity to include a professional author in their Personal Learning Network.  We should sieze the opportunity to make this happen for more students; apparently all you have to do is ask.

If you've read Stuart, you may want to check out Masters' latest book: The Genius in My Basement

QR Codes in Maths Class

I've been working with a fantastic math teacher, Anne F., on how we might use QR codes in the classroom to engage students in a new way. It took her all of twelve seconds to come up with an idea:  Each group of math students has a problem to solve as an introduction to the mensuration, space and shape unit.  They solve the problem and post their answer to their blog.  Then, they create a QR code that will direct people to the blog post and we post that QR code in the hallway.  The hallway will be full of math questions like:



The next day, we'll send students around the halls with their mobile phones equipped with QR code readers. Their task will be to search for a question that interests or intrigues them, anticipate how the group may have solved it, view the group's blog post and then leave a comment.

Will QR codes improve student learning? In this case, we are anticipating that the novelty of it will at the very least engage them. Additionally, having the codes posted around the school will draw some attention to QR codes and hopefully might generate some interest among teachers in finding ways to leverage them for learning.

I'll write a post about how this activity works out later, but for now, here is the information that we will share with the students.

Order of Operations for students:

1. Solve the problem in your group and document your answer (text, audio, video, etc. or any combination of those).


2. Post your answer to your blog.


3. Find the url (web address) of this specific blog post (clicking on the title of your blog post will take you there)


4. Paste the url into Google's URL Shortner http://goo.gl/ (you have to have a Google account if you want create the code)


5. Then click on "details" to see your QR code


6. Save the image of your QR code to your desktop


7. Create a document including your problem, and your QR code (following the example above) for posting in the hallway.

QR Code Readers

There are a lot of readers for iPhone, Android etc.  Here is just a quick reference of links:

iPhone - I tried three and read the reviews of seven.  Red Laser is the free one I chose and it works well for me.

Android - try QuickMark (thanks, Jeff)

Other Phones - Try here: http://www.mobile-barcodes.com/qr-code-software/

Mac OSX (and Windows and Linux) -Your Mac can read QR codes using the built-in iSight camera.   QReader is the only App that I found that isn't in Japanese (which I can't read).  You also have to have Adobe Air downloaded.