My Next Scavenger Hunt

Try this with your camera, it's a great way to find my blog.

I love QR images on so many levels.  The are around us, some subtly some not so subtly, on bust stops, billboards, website, produce and even on some of the packages you receive in the mail from the postal service or UPS.  Founded back in the 1990’s by the Japanese Auto Industry, these images are being used by marketing companies for gorilla marketing campaigns to gain the attention of a tech savvy crowds.

I recently purchased some produce and on the inside of the label was a QR image to scan an enter a contest to see if I won the sweepstakes.  I was recently at a wine tasting  in Lodi where the winery was using QR images to download tasting notes.  I could scan the image and I was taken to a website with notes, pricing and ordering information.  I can then save the info in my scans and access this data any time I want.  “What was the wine I liked again, I will look at my phone.”  Jimmy Fallon used an image on his Late Show during one of his comedy bits that took you to a link of the video he was making. This technology will start to pop up more and more and in many different ways, so how can I use this in education?

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Endeavors with Evernote

The routine is always the same, kids come to class, pull out their notebooks, and prepare for the day.  Invariably, there are one or more students who give out the proverbial cry, “I left my notebook at home!” This is not a huge problem at my school, but students coming unprepared is a problem.  In this day and age of digital access as well as the growing need of student collaboration for success in the real world, I turned to Evernote.

Taking Notes in the Digital Age

My note taking preferences have changed over the years.  My favorite ways of interacting with speakers and lectures is to use Evernote and Twitter.  I like being able to save, share, and then re-live the topic that was discussed.  I love the interactivity of the note-taking and the power it gives me to go back and research the topic as I lived through it at the time.  Now, how do I convince my students there is a benefit to this process?