ATC App of the Week April 30, 2012Barbara Welsford, AT Specialist SSRSB bwelsford@ssrsb.ca Anita Kingdon, AT Facilitator SSRSB akingdon@ssrsb.ca http://assist-tech.ednet.ns.ca

QR-Scanner

Check out our webinar listing by scanning this QR code: June 14th is our QR

Codes in Special Education Webinar... join us to see

how this is done and we’ll show some creative

application of QR Codes

QR-Scanner : .99¢

QR Code Readers (many different Apps for free or a small price) Also get QR Code Creator Apps for your mobile device

What is a QR Code? A QR Code is a matrix barcode that stands for Quick Response code. These little squares have extremely fast readability and a larger storage capacity than regular barcodes so is much loved by industry and education! The codes are made of black dots on a white background (although now you can get QR Generator Apps and/or software on your computer that adds colour to your QR Codes!) Once you scan a code with your mobile, camera ready device the information encoded and linked to can be of many different formats including links to webpages, text, audio files (developed from a webpage source for mp3 recording), videos, phone numbers, links to emails...all within seconds!

How can we use QR Codes in Education? use your imagination to differentiate curriculum for all learners, add interest and engagement to class activities, complete online surveys with a touch of your finger, link to video captured lessons, enhance a textbook and much more.

• Uses of QR Codes to differentiate and add depth and engagement to learning:• Add a definition to a word in a text document• Link to a video online that adds depth to your lesson / paper based document for

students who benefit from visual enrichment• The top QR Code on the right links to interactive Google Maps online that show

where Alexander Graham Bell grew up. A quick search within Google Maps will take you to where the student is located!• Link to TextCompactor - a website that will compact and summarize text that is

copied and pasted into it (great for students with LD who are overwhelmed with the amount of text on this page. From there the student can use Speak Selection (iOS 5 accessibility option) to have the text summary read aloud - right at his/her desk)• Develop a scavenger hunt of QR Codes - around your school or community

(inputting text cues behind the codes - no wifi necessary)• Develop a voice QR Code for the word of the day, key terminology needed for a

certain subject, instructions for a project and so on• Have students develop a QR Code Book in Book Creator App or iBook Creator.

QR Codes can link to text, videos, blogs, images online, voice files etc.• Have students complete an online survey in Fluid Survey right at theirdesks, submit and show results within seconds• If you’re using ShowMe App to demonstrate a math function, capturing the lesson

in video format and saving it to an URL you can make a QR code to link to the lesson so students can review 24/7 easily and efficiently (no need to retype the URL! just point and scan with your mobile device and you’re there!• Project a QR Code from your mobile device to the whiteboard, have students use

their QR Reader App to scan it and access the information behind the code! ....AND MUCH MUCH MORE - JUST USE YOUR IMAGINATION!

Alexander Graham Bell

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland on March the 3rd of

1847, Alexander Graham Bell was educated in London

and at the University of Edinburgh. At the age of 23

Bell moved to Canada and then to the U.S. a year later.

In that same year he opened a school for deaf!people

who could not speak. These people were called deaf-

mutes in the 1800s. He used a teaching system

developed by his father in Scotland. Ultimately Bell’s school merged into

Boston University and he became a Professor of Vocal Physiology and

Elocution there.

Bell wanted to develop a machine to transmit speech.

The first designs involved the concept of a multiple

telegraph. Over the months, Bell and his assistant improved

upon their designs and on the 10th of March, 1876 the first

transmission was made, “Watson come here; I want you.”

After more testing, in November of the same year, Bell and

Watson demonstrated the machine’s capability when quality

transmissions were made from Salem to Cambridge,

Massachusetts. In 1877, Bell and two investors, Gardner

Hubbard and Thomas Sanders, formed the now famous Bell

Telephone Company. Today the Bell Telephone Company is

known as AT&T, American Telephone and Telegraph.

The history of Bell and the telephone is much more

exciting than his scientific developments. The course of

history was changed by the passage of a short period of time

at the U.S. Patent Office. On the 14th of February, 1876,

Bell’s attorney formally applied for a patent for a telephone

based upon the telegraph. Earlier on the same day, another

man by the name of Elisha Gray applied for a Caveat to File

a Patent for a telephone using water to transmit sound. However, the patent for the

telephone invention was awarded to Alexander G. Bell because a Caveat to File a Patent

means that the inventor desires to file a patent in less than three months, but wants patent

protection for the concept. Thus Elisha Gray lost the title of being the inventor of the

telephone.! But Elisha Gray distinguished himself as a renowned Professor of Dynamic Electricity

at Oberlin College in Ohio. In 1888, Gray invented the facsimile machine that today we just

call a fax machine. Elisha Gray, being older than Bell, died in 1901.

Meanwhile, Bell reaped financial rewards by his world recognized development of the

telephone. Later Bell went on to invent the very first transmission of sound over a beam of

light. Bell himself felt that this invention was the greatest of his life’s work. This was the

origin of the fibre optic transmission technology which is being used today.

Alexander Graham Bell is also recognized for his great research into hydro foils for

boats. His work led to the development of a boat that set the world record speed in 1919.

No one beat that speed until 1963. Bell’s efforts in medical technology led to the

development of the iron lung that saved many lives, especially during the polio epidemic of

the 1950s. Bell eventually returned to his beloved Nova Scotia where he passed away in

August, 1922.