Kicking off QR code projects

We started our invovlement with the Bath University QR code JISC project on Monday 26 January 2009 with a visit from Andy Ramsden. We had a great variety of people at the session, from careers and student learning centre, to practitioners and the student union.

Andy presented some background on what QR codes are, what they can do and what level of awareness there is about them amongst the student population (Sarah made some good notes on this) and then we split into smaller groups and came up with some suggested uses. Andy has these recorded on a mind map, but being a bulleted list kind of girl, here is my summary:

SDSS Careers:

• events advertising, on plasma screens, using SMS to reply and book events
• QR stickers on ‘how to’ guides to get to web versions for future reference, cut down on printed leaflets
• Booking system./online calendar/diary
• timetable of events to subscribe to fed by RSS

ITS/Jon Scott

• display QR on own phone screen for remote capture by colleague – replace business card with electronic version (I already tried this – it works well)
• QR code on staff doors to show live availability
• keen to see way led by marketing from Students union for wider spread of awareness and adoption.
• treasure hunt at the botanical gardens?
• codes for buildings linking to maps and ‘where am I?’ postitioning
• codes for next nearest wifi hotspot

Librarians had some great ideas:

• Special collections: to a podcast/vodcast, further information, interactive task or questionnaire.
• Library Induction: a treasure trail of where to find resources. An audio tour.
• Departmental slide collections: instructions or support materials.
• Ejournals: from the physical location of a journal a link to the electronic version.
• QR code linking to availability of wireless networks around the campus.
• Training sessions: could link to feedback or interactive elements (not unlike voting software).
• Peer support: relating to information literacy training or general teaching across the University. Students can create a QR code on the fly that links them to their support /discussion group.

iScience and Alan’s thoughts:

• outreach to schools – make posters more interesting, interactive, informative
• links to videos to demonstrate use of equipment (ruled out in biology but possible in physics or geology?)
• QR codes to denote ‘home’ of a piece of equipment so it can be returned to the right place after use
• error logging for equipment
• use during presentations to data tables (mobile format?)

Student union

• will help SU green agenda to cut down on poster print runs,
• students are poster blind, QR may help attract attention
• QR code on name badges/ business cards (?phone) for elections with links to manifestos
• QR to promote friending on facebook to SU groups (complex URLs, difficult to find easily on fb)

Andy’s full write up

Another area that has come up since the meeting is the use in museums, via twitter.

So time to get working..

Creating social QR

vCard QR code on iTouch and iMac

Following our QR workshop today, I wanted to create some QR codes to use during the project. Encoding difficult to remember URLs or Vcard information to display as a QR on my iTouch screen for others to capture seemed like a perfect use for this technology.

So I used snappr to create two social links: ‘follow jobadge on twitter’, and a link to this WP blog and I also made my vCard to add to my iTouch.

follow twitter/jobadge

follow DrBadgr blog

vCard for Jo Badge

The vCard I made using QRstuff which only offered a print to paper option, but created a PDF in the process, so this image is a screen capture, but it still works on screen via the iPhone. I was amazed at that! So no need for paper business cards, or giving people my twitter or blog details now. It can all come with me on the iTouch. Reminds me of the old infra red system palm used to beam information from one device to another. I wonder if this will catch on better than that?

QR Codes Ideas Factory: Leicester

Andy Ramsden’s write up of the workshop he ran about QR codes with us today.

 

 

via QR codes at Bath by Andy Ramsden on 1/26/09

I ran the QR Codes Ideas Factory at UEA on the 26th January . The attendance was really good from across the institution. Thanks to Jo Badge for organising it. There were QR codes all over the building. The one on the meeting room enabled a link to the supporting documentation on a Blog. I quite liked this idea. It meant as I entered the room I could scan the link, get a handle of the workshop aims, leave comments etc., (link to image).

The outcomes of the session are available in two mind maps;

How might you use QR Codes? (png file)
What are the barriers to the use of QR Codes? (png file)

A couple of things struck me from the session. I was particularly interested the underlying theme … “using QR codes to enable people to access the required information as efficiently and effectively as possible. However, this quickly becomes a pointless activity because on many occasions we might direct them to resources and activities that are not appropriate for small screen devices. Such as web sites that do not render, or documents / pdfs which can not be read. Therefore, if the implementation of QR Codes is to be effective then we need to ensure that our material is accessible and usable on small screen devices”.

There was some discussion about student generation of QR codes and sharing these with each other. An interesting thing to observe was the sharing of QR codes in the session. Quite a few people had iPhones, and one individual captured as a photo a QR code included in my presentation. The person they where sitting next to then read the QR code from the iPhone and not my slide. This made me re-visit the scenario of collecting and managing QR codes from presentations. If I can’t scan the image (for what ever reason) then perhaps I should photo the slide (this is something that I regularly undertake during presentations) then upload them to Flickr, and later read them on my computer screen.

In terms of improving the support material, there were a number of questions raised. Firstly, the issue of size and the need to accommodate error handling, and secondly, the use of different colour QR codes.

Howard Rheingold’s attention 101 #uoltan

This is a reminder that I need to pay attention and watch this video later when I’m not doing OU marking!
I am hoping that this will give me some answers to some of the points raised in our tan session today #uoltan

Fancy a twitter with Britney?

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/article2116931.ece
Fancy a twitter with Britney? New network craze sweeping globe | The Sun |Features

So Twitter in the super soar away Sun. Definitely mainstream now.

Jing flash videos via posterous

(download)

Click here to download:

posteroustest.swf (2935 KB)

Testing whether I can post Jing videos to posterous and then have them autoposted to wordpress. Doubt it but worth a try. It’s a 2.9MB swf file!

note edited on wordpress: almost – clicking on th e download link does play the jing video full screen. I suppose I just need to add a screenshot over the link. However posting Jing direct to posterous using email puts it into a whole new league for me. I am always put off using jing by the faff of making a screen shot, hosting the swf file file somewhere else, writing bits of code to make it work. One email and you’re done – that’s my kind of posting Fab.