- Thematic word lists and reading passages - Clear, easy to understand definitions and examples - Easy access to pronunciation and passage audio through QR codes - Synonyms and antonyms - Diverse reading passages utilizing the vocabularies
Quick response (QR) codes, a type of matrix barcode, offer a simple solution to educators’ concerns. By creating these scannable codes, educators allow students to quickly and easily engage with relevant online materials, including videos, podcasts, images, and more. In doing so, the separation between the classroom and the “real world” is blurred, and students become more accountable for their own learning by applying their language skills to a wide variety of English stimuli using their personal devices. The article presents a variety of successful, classroom-tested ideas for integrating QR codes into collaborative and communicative lessons.
You Can't Read This: Forbidden Books, Lost Writing, Mistranslations, and Codes
Wherever people can read, there are stories about the magic, mystery, and power of what they read. Val Ross presents a history of reading that is, in fact, the story of the monumental, on-going struggle to read. From Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon the Great, the world’s oldest signed author to Empress Shotoku of Japan who in 764 ordered the printing of one million Buddhist prayers; from the story of Hulagu, Ghengis Khan’s nasty brother who destroyed the library of Baghdad to Bowdler and the censorship of Shakespeare, there have been barriers to reading ranging from the physical to the economical, social, and political.
The Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is a fairly typical all-girls school - that is, it would be if every school taught advanced martial arts in PE and the latest in chemical warfare in science, and students received extra credit for breaking CIA codes in computer class. The Gallagher Academy might claim to be a school for geniuses, but it's really a school for spies.
