Making Learning More Fun

We live in a day and age whereby kids don’t understand the fun behind ordinary stuff like building blocks anymore. Head over to a city like New York or Los Angeles, knock on the door of a normal, average family home and in it, you will probably find a tablet or a smartphone. THAT is the kind of day and age that we are living in right now.

Apparently, even in Quincy, the kids are learning things differently from Kindergarten level. iPads are currently being used to help kids recognize alphabets in a kindergarten and it was reported that it took the kids no time at all to learn how to operate the devices (probably because they already have a couple of them at home) and had fun scanning QR Codes while copying down alphabets and words that they were supposed to learn how to put in alphabetical order.

What happened was the child was asked to put three words according to their alphabetical order and the words are hidden in QR Codes so the child would have to scan the QR Code in order to find out what the words were. Although it sounds pretty elementary in the world of mobile marketing, the QR Code element in the way this is taught must be pretty fun for the kids. It is a little bit more fun and exciting because you know…kids love mysterious things.

The principle of the kindergarten in question acknowledges the fact that the school’s been undergoing some major changes in the way things are taught in the St. Francis school and there has seen an amazing surge in educational technology in recent years, especially with iPads. All thanks to donations from well-meaning organizations and individualas, the school has bought laptops for the kids so that they can take it home to do their homework or assignments. A teacher from the school said that the school’s been stocking up on iPads and admitted their usefulness when it comes to teaching the kids.

Using these devices to capture a kid’s attention is definitely a winner because the kids would have no problem whatsoever sitting there with an iPad whereas if they were given a book, they would instantly start daydreaming. Technology keeps kids enraptured for a longer period of time and it opens up so many doors for teachers and educators. The most important thing to remember, whether you are trying to educate a five-year-old or selling something to a customer, is to engage them.

And come to think of it, if QR Code could be so useful for kids in kindergarten, imagine what it could do for older kids. Wouldn’t you think it could make school more interesting for them too?

What do you think?