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Sunday, February 16, 2014

Book Review QR Codes

In our classrooms, we are always looking for new ways to encourage students to read.  Teachers will try just about anything!  When we found a blog post about using QR codes to record students giving book reviews, I knew this was something that would encourage my students to read more.  The benefits went far beyond that, though!  Students worked on writing and paragraph organization, adding interest through vocabulary choice, and practiced writing for an authentic audience.
Mrs. Christopoulos is a 2nd grade teacher at our school who is doing the iPad pilot.  I was discussing this project with her, and we thought this would be a great opportunity for our classrooms to partner up!  I love when younger and older students can work together, because the leadership skills in the older students really comes out, and the younger students are so much more engaged in what they are learning.  This was true in this case as well, as I watched my students work hard to create well-written book reviews, and the 2nd graders were able to learn about a new app on their iPads with one-on-one teaching from the 3rd graders.
For this project, my students each chose a book from Mrs. Christopoulos’ classroom library.  Most were able to find a book they had read before, so they were able to begin working on their book review right away.  We then discussed as a class what needed to go into a book review - title, author, main characters, main idea or problem, and the reason someone should read the book.  As a class, we created a graphic organizer, and students used this information to write a paragraph about their book.  Here is where our new technology comes in.
Students each created an audio recording of their book review using the Chromebook App Voice Recorder.  These were saved to their Drive accounts, and students created a QR code link to the file using the URL Shortener Extension for Chrome. They shared this link with me so that they could be printed.  The QR codes were taped directly onto the back of the books for easy access by students.  As this was the first time, we took about two 30 minute sessions, and a little time during independent work time to create these.  Students can now work independently or in pairs to create new codes during their independent work time.
We then took our books back to Mrs. Christopoulos’ classroom to share with the 2nd graders.  The students paired up, and the 3rd graders showed the 2nd graders how to scan the code and listen to the recording on their iPads.  After they had learned how to do it, the 3rd graders circulated with their books and let the 2nd graders listen to different reviews.  We of course encountered a few bumps in the road, but overall it was a very successful event. 
 
I am excited for students to continue to create book reviews for the books in my classroom.  Other teachers in the school have expressed interest in how they can do this in their own classroom, even our librarian!  What a neat way to encourage all students to read more, by hearing about books from their peers!

For more information on how to create book reviews in your own classroom, see our website on using QR codes in the classroom here.


Interested in hearing about this from the 2nd grade perspective? Read about it here.

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