QR Codes, Augmented Reality, and You Kids Get off My Lawn!

My children tell me that I am behind the times, but here's my dirty confession: I don't get QR Codes. I am very tech-savvy in most ways, but QR Codes have always seemed like a cumbersome thing that often doesn't even work. I have failed to be wowed.

Recently, however, my son used a QR Code for a year-long middle-school project that resulted in a Youtube video. He worked with the organization Lynnhaven River Now to write and direct an entertaining video for kids about preserving the watershed. The video is called Pollution Pirate and my QR code below links to it. I'm very proud of his team's efforts.

The reason I thought to link to this is because when it came time for the exhibition of all the projects, I was more or less anticipating the old-fashioned TV on a cart, showing his team's video on a loop. Instead my son made a flyer with a QR code linking to Youtube so the parents and other visitors could watch the video on their smartphones or at home. So cool, and a way around the fact that Youtube is behind the firewall anyway. It's a reminder that while we librarians are supposed to be tech leaders in school, we should never forget that students will lead us to new ideas.

Without further ado, Pollution Pirate:



In the library, QR Codes have a million applications. I particularly like the idea of using them for book reviews. For example, in a marriage of the new with the old, you could make a color photocopy of a book dust jacket, print it out, add a QR Code, and display it on a "What to Read" bulletin board. The QR Code would link to student book reviews, blogs, and other resources. Sometimes books even have video book trailers you can link to. In fact, after writing this paragraph I decided to look for visual examples to point to for my blog. This library blogger essentially did exactly what I describe: https://freshlymintedlibrarian.wordpress.com/2011/05/10/my-very-own-qr-codes/ She also links to a book trailer.

As for augmented reality, the students and staff at my son's middle school use Aurasma quite a lot. About a year ago the librarian at his school was raving about this app. She had seen some demos and was brimming with ideas for it. Smartphones and iPads are pretty common, so the librarian thought students might use Aurasma in the library for adding their own quick video book reviews. They could take a picture of the book cover and then film a quick video of themselves talking about the book. I don't know if this idea took off, but I know my son created an Aurasma in the cafeteria, something to do with the benefits of recycling.

Augmented reality is a fascinating idea. The number-one thing that makes it new and different from the "regular" Internet is the ability to access information from 2-D images on a mobile device. I love it for marketing. The demos I have seen of scanning movie posters or car ads to get more information are impressive. HOWEVER...I think one of the reasons it has been a hit is the novelty. Once that novelty wears off, then what? Only time will tell. I am old enough to remember when simply visiting a website was really cool! In fact, reviewing websites in actual paper books about the "Net" was one of my very first jobs in New York. No kidding, I wrote a good portion of this book and several others:

Seems comical now. But that book came out in 1996, which is "only" 19 years ago. I plan to be a school librarian 19 years from now...so who knows what will seem comical then?

People want the information they want when they want it, and I don't think text-based search is going anywhere, for the primary reason that you cannot type an image into a search bar. (Although on the other hand, I use Google Image Search all the time.)

Also, and this is my own curmudgeonly bias, while these types of apps are incredibly cool and have many interesting potential applications, "Ain't nobody got time for that." Right now, augmented reality is an extra--an add-on to the real, everyday stuff we have to do. The Internet (circa 1996) used to be an extra. Once upon a time, computers were an extra too. Once upon a million years ago, moveable type was the most advanced technology in the world. I do not think QR Codes and Aurasma are the be-all, end-all, but they are certainly part of the evolving journey.