Today was the first day of school. Ever. It was pretty epic. Since the students didn’t know where things were located in the building yet, I thought we would have some fun locating them with a QR code scavenger hunt. It was SO easy to do, I thought I would share the process here.
1. First I made a new website where each page of the website contained a clue. I made my site with Weebly.com because it is SO easy to use. I made the entire site in under 10 minutes.
2. Next I used goo.gl URL shortener to shorten the URL of each webpage and generate a QR code. Just copy and paste the long Weebly URL into the goo.gl shortener and voila. A short Googlefied (that is a technical term) URL. Click on “Details” next to the shortened URL to view your QR code. I just dragged and dropped these QR codes into a Pages document so that they were all in one place for easy printing/copying.
3. Print out QR code sheet and make enough copies for each classroom. Because we have a 10-1 student-teacher ratio, I made up 10 clues to find. Each student was in charge of one clue. I cut up the QR code sheet so that each student had a little QR code clue card.
4. Set students out on their mission. Each student takes a turn using the Scan app to uncover the clue. They read the clue out loud to their group and brainstorm what the answer could be. When they thought they had the answer, they went to that place and took a picture of it using the camera app. For example, one of our clues was: “The Grub Hub”, students went down to the kitchen and took a picture.
5. When all pictures have been collected, students gather and add up the points they won.
*Below is my example of the QR code and website they were connected to.
This was a really easy activity to prepare for from a teacher perspective. The impact was huge with the students. They had a great time with this!
We used this hunt as a way for students to familiarize themselves with the layout of the new school but it would also be a great activity for a math scavenger hunt “Find an item that represents three times four”, or colors in art “This is the color you get when you mix yellow and blue”, or literature “find an object that represents this character in our novel”. The list could go on and on if you use your imagination! The QR codes are so easy to generate, students could use these for almost anything!
I love this! Just before I came across your Twitter post with this link I had been pondering the idea of using QR Codes in the classroom; problems to solve in order to find the location of the next code etc, like a treasure hunt. Would you say that it was an academic success as well as being fun for the students? Also I wondered if the students could create the QR codes and clues themselves for their classmates to solve; perhaps an on going project, one student a day? I would really like to hear your opinion, I am so excited by your new school and the fact that you were able to go out and achieve it! I wish you all a world of success 🙂
Looks like they had a great time! I had a similar activity planned, but I think I like your idea better. 🙂 Thanks!
Using QR Codes to Engage! http://oldschoolteach.wordpress.com/2011/07/23/qr-treasure-hunt-generator-using-qr-codes-to-engage/
Great minds think alike Lisa 🙂
Yes, it was an academic success for us. The goal was to familiarize kids with the new school building and they can now find their way around (we also have new nicknames for every room thanks to the hunt!)
Yes, the students could definitely create these QR codes on their own. I used goo.gl which requires a Google account but there are lots of services that will make a QR code easily.
I saw your post on Twitter and thought I would try this activity. I now have a treasure hunt set up for my Grade 4s when they return to school on the 7th of September. They will love this. Thank you for sharing this great idea and for the wonderful directions you gave. I have never done anything like this before but you made it so easy. Thank you again.
How fun! You will have to come back and let us know how it went!
What a brilliant idea! 🙂
Angela @ The Bookshelf Muse
I teach Family & Consumer Science.What about having THE STUDENTS create it for Kitchen Safety & Kitchen Terms or utencils?
Not sure how to get them started…The questions they would need to use??
Thinking,
Amy
Love it Amy! The students could come up with the questions to lead another group to answers?
I love all of these great ideas. We have used QR codes in planning meetings. I would live to extend this to the classroom however I teach 5th grade and most kids don’t have cell phones at that age-any ideas?
Hmm, we have 1 to 1 iPads which makes life easy in that capacity. Any iPod Touches (latest generation) in the building that your class could use?
Hi! I’m trying to create a QR code scavenger hunt for my kindergarten students… I’m a resource teacher, so I want it to include things that they are working on. Do you have any suggestions on how to do it? Fun sites to include, etc.?
Thanks!
I have lots on my page that are good for kindies (look at the first grade tab) http://tenkely.org
Have been doing some research on QR codes and creating a treasure hunt for work and article submissions. Was going to use the entire web as my hiding place for qr codes. The difficult part is designing the questions that are not super easy nor impossible to figure out. Thanks for the inspiration and idea’s.
You bet Nicolas, best of luck!
I love your idea. I am looking for to try it. It’s my first time that I am using QR code. Can you share a link of the website that you created for this activity? I just want to make sure that i fully understand how to set up this great activity.
Thank you so much for sharing!!!
The site doesn’t actually exist anymore, served it’s purpose and has been remade! Basically, I just created a page with Weebly.com for each clue that was given by QR code. The QR code was linked to the url with each clue.
I LOVE this idea. I was just thinking of doing a scavenger hunt for the beginning of school and this post was invaluable. Now I gotta think of clues for the science process skills…
Check this website, it is very easy to create such a task:
http://www.classtools.net/QR/
All you need to do is type in your questions and then it creates the QR codes for you. Students scan the codes and do the search to find the answers:) Hope you like it
Thanks, that is a great resource!!
Hi! Just a question about what the students did with pictures. Did they post them somewhere? Did they attach them to the website somehow? Or just leave them in the Photo Library?
Thank you! Fun idea.
I also had another thought. Instead of just having the QRs on cards, you could post them on signs at the destinations so that they would know they got to the right place. So it would be more like a traditional treasure hunt in that they wouldn’t have the next clue until they found the proper destination.
Great idea, thanks for sharing!
The pictures ended up on a shared portal so that we could all see them! We used edu20.org at the time 🙂