Lesson Plan: QR (Quick Response) codes prior to an art exhibition visit

Scan this QR code to ‘listen’

Before going to an art exhibition, the teacher chooses 5 painting by 5 different artists and produces QR codes for the paintings using QRStuff or ZXing Project.

As homework, each group is assigned one artist. They are responsible to search on Safari about the artist and produce a QR code with brief information about the artist using QRvoice,, which will allow others to ‘listen’ to the information scanned. These QR codes are printed prior to the following day’s lesson.

The following day, the teacher posts the QR codes she produced with the painting’s image around the classroom on the walls, turning the classroom into a QR code museum. The class is divided into 5 teams and each team is asked to go scan one QR code using a QR reader, such as Barcode Scanner, in order to see the painting. The groups are not allowed to show the painting or share any details with the other groups. The groups go back to their tables and write or record a description of the painting using ‘there is’ and ‘there are’ (eg. There is a vase on the wooden table. There are 2 pink flowers in the vase). Once all groups finish writing or recording the descriptions, they exchange of with another group. By reading or listening to the description of the painting, the groups use the crayons and paint or draw the picture. Once the time is up, the groups present their painting to the whole class. Then the students scan the QR code to see the original and compare. Through voting, the drawing/ painting that are closest to the original is chosen and that group’s members are presented with a small gift, such as a postcard/ poster of the original painting.

At the end of the lesson, the students pretend they are in a museum, go around the class scanning QR codes to see the original paintings and get information about their artists (The teacher also posts a QR codes produced by the groups next to the painting’s QR code, with information about the artist.). The students can then share their favorites with their classmates. This activity would increase students’ interest in the painting when they visit the museum. Through this integrated-skills, thematic lesson, the students would not only be familiar with the five paintings and their artists but also have a chance to practice their language skills.