QR Codes

We have been learning all about QR codes.  They are like bar codes and contain lots of information.  Mrs. Alaniz made one for our class blog.  Now, visitors to our class scan the code and quickly get the link to our blog.


But we wanted to make our own QR code. Since we have been writing poems in Writer's Workshop, we decided to write poems about locations in our school (the gym, the PE, the cafeteria, the library, the music room, the office, the teacher's lounge, the playground, and art room). We typed them on Google Apps, and  used the Neo Reader app on our iTouches to create QR codes. 

A student is scanning a QR code to make sure the right poem pulls up!

We printed the codes online, posted them around the school, and invited our fellow students to read the poems with iTouches.
We call this "Poetry in Motion". Now fellow students are scanning the codes and enjoying our poetry at the same time!
Here's one of the poems we wrote:

Playground

Whoosh, whoosh swings coming by

watch out so you don’t get kicked in the eye

my turn my turn let me on.

Cool stunt but don’t lose your grip

go,go oh no someone's hurt no more monkey bars.

Jump, jump, chase, chase

running around playing games.

Four square campfire, tag you're it.

Bounce, bounce,pass, pass shoot the three.

Kick, kick goal!

Whistle, whistle now it's over.

What did you like about this project? 

iTouches in the Classroom

Our school has a set of iTouches. They have many apps that help us learn.

We like the iTouches because they are small, easy to put away and  easy to handle.  Mrs. Alaniz calls them "pocket computers". 

It is our turn to use them, and we think they're the greatest! They help us understand technology better.

For our morning/word work, we played some word game apps.
We played Mad Libs and Hangman.  In Hangman there were choices of which kind of word you wanted to guess on.  Partners picked western words such as saddle and boots.

In Reader's Workshop, Mrs. Alaniz read aloud a chapter of The City of Ember and recorded it using Voice Memo. 

Now, anyone who is absent can listen to her read.

As she read, we typed our responses on the Notes app.

Here, two 4D students are responding to events in the book.  We're at a really exciting part! 

While Mrs. Alaniz was reading, we learned some new vocabulary words using Dictionary.com:

We learned that falter means to stumble.

We also read an e-book called The Lorax.

Reading this book was fun because the pages were interactive!

(We'll tell you more about this book in another post!)

These little gadgets can do much more than you may think!
What did enjoy the most about using the iTouches?