QR codes, SMS and class evaluation.

I recently read Susono and Shimomura (2006) (http://www.formatex.org/micte2006/pdf/1006-1010.pdf ) who’d used QR codes in formative class assessment. This got me thinking about their potential use in end of class / unit evaluations. So given I was presenting on QR codes in Education at the recent mLearn 2008 conference (http://www.slideshare.net/andyramsden/qr-codes-mlearn08-presentation ) I thought I’d try a similar experiment myself. However, instead of giving them out the QR codes on paper I thought I’d project the question with the possible responses as QR codes. The open questions included an SMS response. Once the attendee scanned their chosen response it would send a pre-written SMS message to our Edutxt service where I’d be able to collect, manipulate and analyse the responses. The pre-written SMS message was simply the question number (ID) and the response, i.e., yes, or no. The data manipulation involved simply export the results to a csv file, and sorting and removing question number and ensuring the people didn’t vote twice.

So did it work? The QR code, SMS, data manipulation was fine and speedy. However, is this a viable method to collect unit evaluations at this particular moment? The answer is no. This is for the following reasons;

1. Not enough people have a QR code reader on their phone. If they do, then not all the QR code readers read the codes I produce. Therefore, there is a potential standards compliance issue that might need to be addressed.
2. There appears to have been serious problems at reading these in the room. Therefore, the required size means that very few can be fitted onto one powerpoint. This would limit the types of questions that can be asked. For instance, a 5 point likert scale would not be possible.
3. I’m still not comfortable with the costing model for this activity. The onus is on the student paying, so just how scaleable is it?

So do these issues mean that this is not viable?

Well, things can change. I imagine the first point could be relatively well addressed by better user education, and recommending cross device QR Readers. The final point could be addressed by looking at the costing model, or alternatively looking at using local wireless networks. However, for me the third point is the show stopper. Given most evaluation questions include more than 2 responses, we need to ensure on a cluttered powerpoint slide that the QR codes can be read in large spaces.

I'll try optimising the layout / size for a likert question and give it another go ...

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit