SafeShare.TV + QR Code Smash!

I stopped by the Kindergarten wing yesterday, and here's what I saw!

Emily found a QR Code listening center on Teachers Pay Teachers for Thanksgiving stories, and the QR codes linked to videos of the stories. The students scanned the QR code and listened to the story as the video followed the pages and words. They were loving it!

One thing I noticed is that the videos were actually from YouTube, but were on a site called SafeShare.TV. On this site, you can put in a link to a YouTube video, and it will block out everything else around the video on a unique link.. even the ad that plays before it! Pretty nifty!

To test it out, I found the video on YouTube for Duck for President. 

Then, I pasted the link into SafeShare.TV and clicked the Generate Safe Link button.

You can also click on Customize Video to choose just a portion or clip from the video to share on your link:

And voila! Your video is complete!

So the next step would be to create the QR Code that links to the video. That's easy, we can do that on QRstuff.com. Just copy/paste the SafeShare.TV link that you made into the link box:

Then click on Download QR Code and you can put it onto any worksheet, poster, or even just your SmartBoard for students to scan and watch! 

Try testing this QR Code by using a QR Reader app, like Scan. Enjoy!

A Technology Blog Hop

Spring into Technology with Classroom Freebies!

Several phenomenal teachers, Technology Tailgate Coaches and bloggers are joining forces for an amazing classroom technology blog hop!  As you hop from blog to blog, you will visit some of your favorite blogs and discover a few new blogs too!  Each with a fabulous freebie just for you!

Thank you for hopping over!

This stop on the blog hop is a super easy and fun QR project that 3rd graders did. They are studying biographies right now, so every student is assigned a different person. To make the QR Codes, students used an audio recording website called Vocaroo. You don't need an account and it's free to use!

Each student came up with a "fun fact" about their person, and then used Vocaroo to record their fun fact. Then, they put their QR Codes on their lockers for other students to scan and learn about their person. 

On Vocaroo, you have many choices of what to do with your voice recording, such as just use the weblink, embed it, share it through a social network platform, download the file, or create the QR Code. 

Your freebie for stopping by is a quick start guide to Vocaroo for your students to use the website and make their own QR Code independently! Click here to get it!

Thank you so much for stopping by and visiting!  If you are new to my blog and liked what you see, don't forget to follow me!  The next stop on the path is  

Jan at The Science Vault

In case you didn't start from the beginning, here is an ordered list of all participating blogs!

The Technology Tailgate

Kate from EduKate and Inspire

Kristin from iTeach 1:1

Heidi from Rakis Rad Resources

Leah from Learn With Leah

Amanda and Aylin from Learning to the Core

Nikki from An Uncommon to the Core Teacher

Karla at The Connected Teacher

Shana at Enchanted with Technology

Kristen at Teacher Playground

Jen at Tech with Jen

Kay at A Little Tech

Melanie at I Luv Twek

Carrie and Caitlin at Table Talk with C & C

Lauren at iWonder

Jan at The Science Vault

A special thank you to Jen at Tech with Jen for designing the blog hop button!

Interested in joining our next blog hop?  Join here! 

QR Codes

"So.. umm.. what's a QR code?"

Well, a QR (quick response) code is a barcode that can be scanned using an app on your SmartPhone, iPad, iPod, etc. It can contain images, website links, and text messages. Fun fact: unlike your standard UPC barcode which uses only 12 digits, a QR code can store up to 7,089 numerical characters or 4,296 alphanumeric characters!

On our iPads, we use the Scan app, which was free!

As Winter Break approaches and all the kids in Santa hats are getting a little restless, why not try out a pre-made activity using the iPads? It'll get your class moving and excited!

A quick search on TeachersPayTeachers for "QR code" brought up 160 results, and some of them were freebies!

Some of the lessons had students make their own QR codes, while others use the QR codes to check student answers. 

Or, if you're feeling daring, you could make your own! I usually use qrcode.kaywa.com to make them. You just enter in the text box what you want your QR code to link to (URL, text, etc.) and click on Generate Free and you can take a screen shot of your QR code to save it for later. 

And now that you're really excited about using QR codes with your students, here are 46 Interesting Ways to Use a QR Code to Support Learning!

I have various activities and QSGs stored away for QR Codes, so let me know if you're interested in co-planning or need any help!