DECYPHER AND LEARN

Age: Any
Proficiency level: Any
Objective: To review vocabulary, to ask and answer questions, to learn new information about a topic, or anything you can think of that can be encoded in QR. 
Materials: 

• Printed QR codes created by the teacher for a specific task.
• a set of questions, answers, synonyms, etc, depending on the teacher's objective for the activity.
• Tablets or smart phones with an app that reads QR codes.  

 Place the printed QR codes on the walls around the classroom. Pair students up and give each pair a tablet, or ask them to use their own device. Tell them to figure out the message in all the QRs, paying attention to the information given. When they finish, they close their device and try to solve the task presented by the teacher (answering questions, matching vocabulary items, etc). They get together with other pairs to try to complete the task. They open their devices again and check ir they were correct. 

Although we can encode pictures, sound, and videos, the only kind of QR that does not need internet connection is the text message. Therefore, only encode the other items if you are sure your connection will work well. 
Here is an example of activity prepared as a warm-up for a lesson entitled "Amazing Nature". It talks about animals that migrate or hibernate during the greatest part of their lives.The grammar topic related to the unit is the use of future perfect and future perfect continuous, so we made a point of starting to present the topic.
     
The sentences encoded are:

1 – In its lifetime, the Arctic Tern will have made three round trips to the moon

2 – The Chilean Flamingos can travel up to 700 miles, or 1,126 km, a day.

3 – Male and Female Arctic Squirrels hibernate in different periods of the year.

4 – The Elephant Seal can travel 21,000 km, mostly under water, and keep its sense of direction.

5 – The groundhog’s heartbeat drops from 80 to 4 beats per minute, and its body temperature can go below zero.

6 – The Sooty Shearwater travels around 64,000 km in its migration round trip.

The questions students were supposed to answer after collecting the information were:

1 – Which animal will have made three round trips to the moon during his lifetime?

2 – Which animal can travel up to 700 miles a day?

3 – What can the elephant seal do?

4 – What happens when the groundhog is hibernating?

5 – How far does the Sooty Shearwater travel in his migration route?

6 – What is interesting about the Arctic squirrels’ hibernation?

We used the site www.qrstuff.com to create the codes, and the app SCAN to read them.