Visitors to the Pauline Haass Public Library in Sussex will find book recommendations from Woodside Elementary School fifth-graders on QR codes in the children’s area. Community members are invited to bring their smartphones or tablets to scan the two-dimensional barcodes, extract the students’ written book recommendations and read them at their convenience.
Short for Quick Response, QR code was developed by the Japanese auto industry to track vehicles during manufacturing. It has become popular due to its fast readability and storage capacity. Students in Brian Siegel’s class are using the QR code technology to promote literacy.
“Literacy is not just reading books, magazines and newspapers,” Siegel said. “These days, it involves more computers, tablets and smartphones than ever before. We are constantly reading digital text, sometimes more often than text on a page.”
Siegel said the idea for posting QR code book recommendations at a library was to help students share their writing with a large audience.
“My purpose was to have students use a type of digital literacy to increase their audience beyond those that walk by a bulletin board in the school,” Siegel said. “It increased motivation to write as well as excitement to incorporate technology as a part of literacy.”
Woodside Elementary School is located at W236 N7465 Woodside Road, Sussex. The Pauline Haass Public Library is at N64 W23820 Main Street, Sussex.