A new and smartphone friendly version of Jenga has been produced to help teach math.
QR codes are starting to play yet another important role in education, as a new version of an old game has been developed in order to assist in teaching children about fractions and how they work.
These smartphone friendly barcodes have been used for several years to help teach children various lessons.
Teachers are always coming up with new and innovative ways to apply the codes to help with everything from physical education to health and now mathematics, as well. The latest development is the addition of QR codes to the blocks in the game of Jenga. This innovative idea was developed to make fractions easier to understand for young children.
The QR codes are applied to each block so that they can be scanned using mobile devices.
The idea for the QR codes on Jenga blocks first belonged to Tabitha Carro. This inspired teacher decided to generate the barcodes and add them to the game pieces in order to help to teach fourth graders how easy fractions can actually be. Carro took the initiative to apply labels to each of the game’s 54 blocks.
Each game piece label included a simple fractions question that had to be solved by the players, which was accompanied by QR codes. The children were assigned to small groups to construct one tower at a time. Each participating child would take his or her turn, removing a block from the pool. He or she would be required to solve the problem printed on that block and then tell the answer to the playing group.
The group could then scan the QR codes in order to verify whether or not the answer was correct. Each of the barcodes was unique to its question, so that it took only one scan in order to discover the answer. If the answer was determined to be incorrect, that block was required to be returned to the pool. The game continues onward until all 54 questions have been correctly answered and each block has been worked into the group’s tower.
