QR Codes in the Music Classroom

QR Codes in the Music Classroom
QR Codes in the Music Classroom

This is a guest post by Katherine Miller.

QR codes have so many different purposes in our lives. This type of matrix barcode can hold any type of information from grocery sales to recorded performances. It literally means, “quick response” which makes them a perfect fit for any classroom.

I first came across activities that utilized  QR codes for learning on social media when I was doing some research about how I could adjust to accommodate the new expectations brought on by the global pandemic. What other types of things could I use to reinforce new content? How can I get students interested in continued practice of their newly learned skills? In the past,  I heavily relied on singing in my elementary music classroom so I was at a bit of a loss on how to practice learned content without including songs and play party games that we could sing over and over again.   Of course, on top of that, all the manipulatives and activities I might have used in conjunction with singing are also not an option as many of them require students to share supplies.  

While I came across so many amazing ideas, I really fell in love with those that utilized QR codes because it was a common way to get students all the different kinds of activities.  From games to listening activities, virtual classrooms or even just a website, I could teach even my youngest students how to access the camera on their device and away they can go with practice on their own.

QR Code Match Activity

One of my favorite (and student’s favorite!) examples of a QR code activity is a QR Code Match from Lauren Summa at Rhythm and Glues (Adventures in Elementary Art and Music Education).   This activity is great for continued practice on identifying music durations by their name and symbol.  Each QR code is linked to a fun or funny gif that will be revealed to students if they can successfully match the duration symbol to its name. You can see why kids get totally hooked! The humorous images and videos provide the motivation students need to practice, practice, practice.

TpT Tech Center QR Code Music Match

This is a free resource available on Teachers Pay Teachers.  To use this resource, you need to print out the page she created.  Once the page is printed, you cut each strip out. Lastly, you cut each strip directly down the center of the QR code.  

Once your strips are ready, you need to provide each student (or group if you can share supplies in your building) with a full set plus a device to scan the codes. Students will work to match the notes to the names to create a full QR code. If they’ve matched it correctly, the gif will appar when it is scanned by the camera app. If they are wrong, nothing would happen so they would know to try again

Tip: In order to keep each set of strips organized, you could print them on different colors or number each set on the back. 

3 Ways to Extend This Idea 

Once students have tried this out, they will be asking to try it again and again. Here are 3 ways you can extend this idea into some new activities to continue practicing content using QR codes.

  1. Create other matching activities. 

QR code matching could be used in a variety of ways including any type of vocabulary students are working on with the word and the definition on each side of the strip. You could also create strips to match letter names to fingerings on their instrument or composers to the time period they wrote music in. The ideas are nearly endless!

  1. Use them as a task for an escape room

A matching activity is a great task to include in an escape room. For instance, rather than the QR code leading to a gif, you could have it lead to a clue they need to escape. An example of this would be attaching the QR code to a Google doc that has a letter students could use to crack a letter lock if they needed to open it.  (Video example here.)

TpT Video QR Code activity
  1. Change it up!

You could use the same idea but change up the activity by having the QR code reveal a word and having students match it to the corresponding symbol. For example, if the QR code leads them to the word “forte” students would have to match it to a definition card that says “loud”. You can even have students create their own definitions to words revealed in each code and compare them as a class to check for student understanding.

How to Make Your Own QR Code Activity

It is so easy to create your own QR code for any type of activity.  All  you need to do is visit a website that allows you to generate your own. The one I use most often is: https://www.the-qrcode-generator.com/.

QR Code Generator

Each unique QR code will be created when you enter a URL. Once you have copied and pasted it into the website, you can then save the generated QR code and share it with students!

Tip: To get a URL for things you create on Google, just choose “Publish to the Web” under the “File” menu. A URL will appear which you can easily copy and paste.

Have you created activities for practicing content with students using QR codes? We would love to see your ideas to continue sharing them with others!

Download your copy

Would you like to take a copy of this article with you? Click the button below and a copy of this will be sent directly into your inbox.

About the writer

Katherine Miller

Katherine (Katie) Miller holds a Bachelor of Music in Education degree from Otterbein University (Westerville, OH) and a Masters of Educational Leadership from Antioch McGregor Midwest (Yellow Springs, OH). She has 15 years of professional musical experience as a music educator and performer.

She is currently employed by the School District of Waukesha in Waukesha, WI, where she teaches K-5 General Music and serves as a district model tech classroom. She was recognized in 2018 as a WPT Education Innovator by Wisconsin Public Television Education team. Twitter: K8TMiller

Looking for More Resources for Music Teachers?

Hello! I’m Katie Argyle – an Australian music technology trainer and consultant with a passion for helping music teachers through my business Midnight Music.

I’m a qualified teacher but no, I don’t currently teach in a school. I help teachers through my online professional development space – the Midnight Music Community – where there are tutorial videos, courses, links and downloadable resources.

MMC Mockup new

I like to focus on easy ways to incorporate technology into what you are already doing in your music curriculum through a range of creative projects. I also run live workshops and have presented at countless conferences and other music education events.

If you want simple, effective ideas for using technology in music education, I would LOVE to help you inside the Midnight Music Community.

Learn more and take a sneak peek inside

2 Comments

  1. Nancy January 29, 2021 at 8:17 am - Reply

    I had my student rap their name using the Garage band app. How do I link the QR code to their rap so other students and teachers in the building can listen to their rap.

    Thank you,
    Nancy Von Wald
    Minnesota

    • Katie February 24, 2021 at 8:15 am - Reply

      In brief – you’ll need to export the GarageBand song from the app and then upload it somewhere online. There are many options for that – it could be to a website or to Dropbox or Google Drive – somewhere where you can generate a link to the place that the song “lives”. Then you can make a QR code that goes directly to that page. When others scan the QR code it will take them to the page and they can listen to the song.

Leave A Comment

You might also like...

Introducing

The Midnight Music Community

An online community where music tech professional development, lesson ideas, and accountability come together.
Ultimate Free Music Tech Resource Guide Guide 2023/24

Download Now for FREE...

The Ultimate Music Tech Resources Guide for 2023-2024

Claim your copy of our annual guide to free music technology resources, designed especially for music teachers. Discover interactive music websites, software, productivity tools, and assessment resources you can use in your music classroom for free.

Follow Me on Social Media

PRIVACY POLICY

This is the Privacy Policy for the Midnight Music website located at www.midnightmusic.com (“Site”).

The Site is operated by Midnight Music Pty Ltd ABN 87 619 652 603 (“Midnight Music” or “Company” or “we” or “us”).

Midnight Music understands the importance of protecting your personal information and undertakes to adhere to this privacy policy at all times to ensure your personal information is effectively safeguarded.

Information you provide to us

The Site provides various places for users to provide information. We collect information that users provide by filling out forms on the Site, communicating with us via contact forms, responding to surveys, search queries on our search feature, providing comments or other feedback, providing information when ordering a product or service via the Site, and other circumstances where collecting personal information is reasonable and permitted by the Laws of the State of Victoria, Australia.

We use information you provide to us to deliver the requested product and/or service, to improve our overall performance, and to provide you with offers, promotions, and information.

Information we collect through automatic data collection technology

As you navigate through the Site, we may use automatic data collection technologies including Google Analytics to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns. This will generally include information about your location, your traffic pattern through our Site, and any communications between your computer and our Site. Among other things, we will collect data about the type of computer you use, your Internet connection, your IP address, your operating system, and your browser type.

The information we collect automatically is used for statistical data and will not include personal information. We use this data to improve our Site and our service offerings. To the extent that you voluntarily provide personal information to us, our systems will associate the automatically collected information with your personal information.

Use of cookies and pixels

Similar to other commercial websites, our Site utilises a standard technology called “cookies” and server logs to collect information about how our site is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our site, and the websites visited just before and just after our own, as well as your IP address.

A cookie is a very small text document, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier. When you visit a website, that site’s computer asks your computer for permission to store this file in a part of your hard drive specifically designated for cookies. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser’s preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a website to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites.

The Company reserves the right to use technological equivalents of cookies, including social media pixels. These pixels allow social media sites to track visitors to outside websites so as to tailor advertising messages users see while visiting that social media website. The Company reserves the right to use these pixels in compliance with the policies of the various social media sites.​

How we manage personal information

Midnight Music undertakes to take all commercially reasonable steps to ensure that all personal information collected by us is accurate, up-to-date, complete and stored securely. When your personal information is no longer required for the purposes which Midnight Music uses personal information, all commercially reasonable steps will be undertaken to securely destroy that information.

How your personal information will be used

We use personal information for purposes of presenting our Site and its contents to you, providing you with information, providing you with offers for products and services, providing you with information about your subscriptions and products, carrying out any contract between you and the Company, administering our business activities, providing customer service, and making available other items and services to our customers and prospective customers.
From time-to-time, we may use the information you provide to us to make you offers to purchase products and services provided by third parties in exchange for a commission to be paid to us by such third parties. Should you opt to take part in such promotions, the third parties will receive your information.

Disclosure of your information

Midnight Music considers personal information we collect about you to be confidential and will not disclose such information to third parties except in the following circumstances:

  • Where you have consented to your personal information being provided to a third party;
  • Where Midnight Music is required by law to disclose your information; and
  • Gaining access to your personal information held by Midnight Music

Except in circumstances where access to your personal information may be denied by the Privacy Act or other Law of the State of Victoria, Australia, your personal information will be provided to you upon request.

Visitors’ General Data Protection Regulation rights

If you are within the European Union, you are entitled to certain information and have certain rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). These include the following:

  • We will retain the any information you choose to provide to us until: (a) you ask us to delete the information; (b) we decide to cease using our existing data providers; or (c) the Company decides that the value in retaining the data is outweighed by the costs of retaining it.
  • You have the right to request access to your data that the Company stores and the rights to either rectify or erase your personal data.
  • You have the right to seek restrictions on the processing of your data.
  • You have the right to object to the processing of your data and the right to the portability of your data.
  • To the extent that you provided consent to the Company’s processing of your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing based upon consent that occurred prior to your withdrawal of consent.
  • You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority that has jurisdiction over issues related to the General Data Protection Regulation.
  • We require only the information that is reasonably required to enter into a contract with you. We will not require you to provide consent for any unnecessary processing as a condition of entering into a contract with us.

Contact us

Should you have any queries in relation to the above or require further information regarding the Privacy Policy please contact us:

Midnight Music Pty Ltd
PO Box 219
Glen Waverley
Victoria 3150
AUSTRALIA

Email address: support@midnightmusic.com