How Natalie C. found her way onto this blog I'll never know (by which I mean I'll look at the Blogger stats later, if it occurs to me), but I'm glad she did. She presents a solution to taking attendance with a QR code which is simple and free. Full instructions are just a click away.
The Sparknotes version is this: She created a Google Docs form which included all the information she wants from her attendees, then created a QR code from the address of the form. Attendees shoot the QR code with their smartphone cameras, their smartphone takes them to the form, they fill out the form, click submit, and bam. A Google Docs spreadsheet takes the information and puts it in neat rows with a timestamp and all. Very clever!
This might be a little involved for my purposes. I just want to point a camera at a student and have a computer register that the student is there, all official-like. But still, this is slick, and I can think of a few other ways to make that useful. More about that later.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
Sudden Insights!
Ed Week headlines: Study Finds Sudden Insights Key to Learning Words. (This is a subscription thing. I got cheated in through the side. I'll summarize.)
As a World Language educator, I spend a bunch of time repeating key vocabulary words in ways that I think will help students remember it. Turns out, I might be...maybe not exactly misplacing my efforts, but let's say...not focusing my students at the right time. They make an initial hypothesis of a word, and then refuse to let it go until the hypothesis is undeniably proven false. Turns out, though, that given enough context, people are really good at making initial guesses. Besides, when we forget our initial guess, we get a chance to guess again. We remember the word when a.) it's interesting or important that we know it, or b.) we've guessed correctly enough times that it sticks. (That last sentence is an interpretation.)
So this effects my instruction in two ways: 1.) I need to be looking for ways to create aha moments. 2.) My focus should be on creating concrete, rather than abstract, moments. We understand the concrete; we can really only do abstract when we have either a lot of concrete to work with or a lot of practice at doing abstract. One way they do this in the research is to put a new thing with two know things and say, "Get the [new thing]!" Not only do children correctly identify the new thing, they generally remember what the new thing is called.
As a World Language educator, I spend a bunch of time repeating key vocabulary words in ways that I think will help students remember it. Turns out, I might be...maybe not exactly misplacing my efforts, but let's say...not focusing my students at the right time. They make an initial hypothesis of a word, and then refuse to let it go until the hypothesis is undeniably proven false. Turns out, though, that given enough context, people are really good at making initial guesses. Besides, when we forget our initial guess, we get a chance to guess again. We remember the word when a.) it's interesting or important that we know it, or b.) we've guessed correctly enough times that it sticks. (That last sentence is an interpretation.)
So this effects my instruction in two ways: 1.) I need to be looking for ways to create aha moments. 2.) My focus should be on creating concrete, rather than abstract, moments. We understand the concrete; we can really only do abstract when we have either a lot of concrete to work with or a lot of practice at doing abstract. One way they do this in the research is to put a new thing with two know things and say, "Get the [new thing]!" Not only do children correctly identify the new thing, they generally remember what the new thing is called.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
QR re-revisited
http://qrvoice.net/#id=tS5ZsH
This website has an app that will take what you type in, create a QR code for it, and, when you scan the code, play the text-to-voice audio. That's pretty cool.
This website has an app that will take what you type in, create a QR code for it, and, when you scan the code, play the text-to-voice audio. That's pretty cool.
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