Last week I was looking through my YouTube Studio analytics and noticed that once again my video about creating QR codes for Google Forms was trending upward. Searches on my blog for “QR code generator” were up last week as well. If you were one of those people searching for information about QR codes, here are five ways to use them in your school and a few tools for making them. 

QR codes are easy to make and easy to scan with mobile phones and tablets, they can be helpful in accomplishing a lot of things in school settings. Here’s a short list of ways to consider using QR codes in your school. 

• Share sign-in/sign-out sheets via QR code. If you’re using Google Forms or Microsoft Forms to maintain sign-in/sign-out sheets, post a QR code on the wall of the room to be signed into or out of to make it easy for students or colleagues to access those forms. Here’s a demonstration of using QR Code Monkey for that purpose. 
• Share links to important and frequently updated webpages like the school lunch menu. Last year the daily lunch menu was plastered all over my school in the form of a QR code that students could scan to get the day’s menu and place orders in advance. One of the easiest ways to make a QR code for that purpose is to use the QR code generator that is built into Google Chrome. Here’s a demo how that works. 
• Create QR codes to access voice messages. With the Mote Chrome extension installed you can simply click the Mote icon to record voice notes. When you’re done speaking simply click the share button and you’ll have an option to view and download a QR code. Anyone who scans your QR code will be able to listen to your voice recording. Watch this short video to learn how you can share voice notes via Mote QR codes.  
• QR codes can be useful for distributing important contact information to parents and students. QR Code Monkey lets you not only create QR codes for URLs, but also create QR codes to distribute contact information like phone numbers and email addresses. 
• I forget which school I that I first saw it in, but a handful of years ago I visited a school library in which there was a selection of books that had QR codes inside the dust jacket. The QR codes linked to book trailer videos that students had made about those books.