Despite the technology being available for classrooms to go paperless, it’s been my experience that the photocopy machine is still a teacher’s best friend. But paper-based handouts are limited in a number of ways. There is limited space, and they are a single media. For teachers wanting to include digital media, whether it is audio/video media or more text than can fit on the handout, bring your own device (BYOD) solutions can be an effective alternative.

Many teachers have explored ways to use the various devices brought by the students to class by employing resources that work with any device (e.g., see Gallagher, 2014). Most often these are web-based applications that are not tied to a single platform unlike, for example, Apple iBooks. In my experience, one of the more difficult aspects of using BYOD in the classroom is getting all of the students onto the same web page or getting the digital resource into their devices. For example, a link for a YouTube video is a series of unintuitive letters and numbers that can be difficult to manually input, especially because capitalization matters. Mistakenly inputting an uppercase letter instead of a lowercase one will lead the students to the wrong video. I’ve spent significant amounts of class time correcting students who have input the wrong link. A QR code eliminates this issue. Students simply scan the code and the correct digital resource is available in their device.

A QR code is a matrix barcode of pixels and spaces arranged in a square that can be scanned with a mobile phone, tablet, or other camera-equipped device such as a Nintendo DS. The main advantage of a QR code over a traditional bar code is that a QR code can store significantly more information, and therefore can be used in far more flexible ways. Specifically, QR codes can be used to transmit Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), commonly known as web addresses, and thereby avoid troublesome manual input (Rivers, 2009).

I have been using QR codes with my students since 2004, and in this article I would like to share a few suggestions for how you can use them, too.

Audio and Video

I don’t think it is hyperbole to say that YouTube is the largest corpus of AV of English language materials in the world; furthermore, it is currently ranked as number two on the Top 100 Tools for Language Learning 2015 (Hart, 2015). How to use YouTube videos for language learning is beyond the scope of this short article, but I have found assigning both top-down and bottom-up listening activities as homework to be effective in both motivating the students to complete the assignment and for increasing their listening ability. I will often create a handout that has a series of comprehension questions, dictation exercises, or other activities based around a YouTube video. The students scan the QR code with their phone (or other device), watch the video, and complete the worksheet. Although this is a homework assignment, it can be done in class as well. The advantage of having the students use their own device, as opposed to watching it together as a class, is that students can watch the video at their own pace, stopping and starting as they want, and they can view it as many times as they need to.

These kinds of activities can also be done with the audio files for the textbook. Increasingly, publishers are putting the accompanying textbook audio program for students on the web as a download instead of including a CD with the textbook. I would create a QR code that linked directly to the publisher’s website, and the students could scan the code and listen using their device. I like to assign my students to listen to the audio from the textbook again as homework, but I have also had the students listen to the audio on their own devices in class instead of listening to the CD together. In large classes, it can be difficult to know when everyone is finished, but individual listening does have the advantage of allowing the students to listen at their own pace, as mentioned above. A good example of the publisher making the audio program available on the web is World Link 2 (Stempleski, Douglas, & Morgan, 2011). The code in Figure 1 links to their website.

 Figure 1. A QR code linking to a textbook audio file.

Text-Based Resources

Often, I like to use text-based web resources as background material before students engage in a speaking activity. Of course, it is unfeasible for teachers to print out and photocopy an entire Wikipedia article, but having the students look up the information with their smartphones is possible. While URLs for Wikipedia entries are, generally speaking, more intuitive than YouTube URLs, they can be quite long and still troublesome to manually input. Creating a QR code that the students simply scan saves time and energy that the students can devote to the learning task.

How to Make a QR Code

Making a QR code is simple and free. There are a number of web resources available to teachers. Simply go to the website, input the URL or other information that you would like to be encoded, and the website will automatically create a QR code. Teachers can then either download the QR code as an image file, or simply cut and paste the image into their word processor. Because the creators of this technology have made it open source (Denso Wave, n.d.), it is free to make and use QR codes.

One of my favorite websites for making QR codes is QR Code Generator. This site is free, easy to use, and creates excellent quality codes. However, there are many, many choices available. Googling “QR code maker” comes up with more than 9 million hits. Many of these sites have advanced features like being able to change the color or add a logo or other image to the center of the code. I recommend teachers experiment with various sites to find one that they like.

Conclusion

QR codes are one of the best resources available to teachers who want to expand their paper-based handouts with digital media. They are easy for the students to use, they eliminate wasted time and energy getting the digital resources into a student’s device, and they are free and easy to make.

References

Denso Wave. (n.d.). FAQ. Retrieved from http://www.QRcode.com/en/faq.html

Gallagher, K. (2014). Students speak: Is 'going paperless' good for the classroom? Retrieved from https://www.edsurge.com/news/2014-06-26-students-speak-is-going-paperless-good-for-the-classroom

Hart, J. (2015). Top 100 tools for learning 2015. Retrieved from http://c4lpt.co.uk/directory/top-100-tools/

Rivers, D. J. (2009). Utilizing the quick response (QR) code within a Japanese EFL environment. The JALT CALL Journal, 5(2), 15–28.

Stempleski, S., Douglas, N., & Morgan, J. R. (2011). World link 2. Boston, MA: Heinle Cengage Learning.

Cameron Romney has taught ESL/EFL in both the United States and Japan for the last 18 years. He holds an MA in applied linguistics from the University of Colorado at Denver. His primary research interest is in how the visual elements of language learning materials contribute to, or detract from, learning. Currently he is an assistant professor in the Global Communications Faculty of Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan.