Henry Ford Would Be Proud--Using QR Codes

In Front of the Museum Entrance

Going along with the theme of writing about our experiences from Meg’s last blog post, my husband and I recently visited The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.  I must admit, when my husband first mentioned his idea of visiting these two places, I was not very enthusiastic.  I was wrong!

For those of you not familiar with these two facilities, I learned that Henry Ford did a lot more then make the Ford automobile.  He was quite the collector! And, this is how the museum and village got their start.  When you visit the museum and village, you get to see Henry’s collection first hand.  He was an inventor and an innovative man, so he collected items from people who were also innovative such as Charles Lindbergh, Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, and the list seriously could go on for a long, long time.

Noah Webster House

When I say collected items, I mean the village is full of structures he collected like the one room school house he attended or Noah Webster’s (creator of the dictionary) home.  Yes, I said home!  Henry Ford purchased the home, and had it brought to his Greenfield Village.  I could go on and on with the list of amazing things you can see when visiting the museum, which brings me to my next point.  You don’t have to go there to experience all the museum and village have to offer.

Let me begin by saying the docents were very friendly, helpful, and informative. I love to see people enthusiastic about their work.  It speaks to the type of environment the museum is trying to create.   Anyway, it was a docent who led us over to this “kiosk” to show us how The Henry Ford Museum has gone digital.

Using the Touch Screen to Access the Digital Collections

Standing in front of one these touch computer screens allows you access to the museum's digital collections.  What does that mean?  Every item on display has been photographed and written about and the information has been made accessible for you to take home through the use of a QR code.  You can use your phone to scan the QR code, or a docent can give you what looks like a credit card to use to scan the QR codes.  Once you've scanned the code, the information is sent to you for access at a later date from the comforts of your own home.

For example, as I was walking through the museum I spotted a display on camping trailers.  Being that I like camping, I took a stroll through the display.  I came across the trailer of Charles Lindbergh and his wife.  Cool!  However, all I could see was the outside of the trailer.  BORING!

I wanted to see the inside of the trailer Henry Ford gave to his friend Charles in 1942, so I walked over to the “kiosk” to look it up in the digital collections.  Of course it was on file!  If I had wanted to, I could have scanned the available QR code and had the information saved for later use.  If you click on the link below the image of Lindbergh, you will also notice that through searching using the key word “Lindbergh”, I also had access to other archives the museum owns related to Lindbergh.  In fact, the museum’s digital collection includes every item they own—this means items that may not be on public display.

Link Here for More Info

Of course you can also access the museum’s digital collection at home, and I do encourage you to take a look.  I plan to use their digital collections this year in my English class for inspiration on various writing topics.  I can see myself pulling up photos from the digital collection--think visual literacy.  Also, it would be a wonderful non-fiction reading resource.  I am thinking reluctant readers would enjoy perusing the images and reading the “short” blurbs of text that accompany the pictures as well (see link beneath Lindbergh image).  And, of course, this site can be used to support history curriculum and for research.

You will probably see more about my experience at The Henry Ford Museum in future blog posts.  Until then, have fun using the digital collections and teacher resources found on the museum’s website.

Look for the word Collections on the museum's homepage.

Note:  I put kiosk in quotes because the museum did not call or label the computers available in the museum as such.  It just seemed like the right word to fit for the purpose of describing the technology available.

Experiences Worth Writing About

June 14, 2014
Old St. Patrick's Church, Chicago

The month of June was quite the whirlwind!  I know most teachers welcome the end of the school year with open arms, happy to have summer break stretched out before them with possibilities of relaxation and adventure. For me (Meg), summer break meant something a little different this year.  I got married on June 14 to the most wonderful man, and thus embarked upon a new journey called marriage.

Teachers, regardless of the subject we teach, know that learning starts with making connections to our own experiences, using our background knowledge to attempt to gain access to a greater understanding.  While I am new to this whole marriage thing, I have not doubt it will give me plenty of experiences to use as fodder for future learning.  Likewise, I know I will need to use what prior knowledge I already have to help me navigate the waters of marriage.

Although there are still six weeks of summer break remaining, I cannot help but think forward to the upcoming school year (call me crazy) and how I will start the year with my students. I want to begin by building rapport with my new kids, and what better way to do that than sharing important life stories with each other?  Within the first few days of school, I always engage my students in some type of "about me" activity to start building our classroom community.  I have taught many different subjects over the past eight years, so the actual activity itself has changed in order to make a connection with my content area.  This coming school year, I will be back in 6th grade after a two year stint teaching 8th grade algebra.  My incoming 6th graders won't know much about me given they are new to the school, and those with older siblings who may have known of me will not recognize the name "Mrs. Knapik".  I will certainly need to provide them with some background on me if they are to feel comfortable learning with me.  And since I will still be teaching math, we will likely write math stories about our summer adventures to help us get to know each other.  This can be done briefly by writing their stories as blog posts, or this can be done with more depth by creating digital stories.

Patara Elephant Farm
Chiang Mai, Thailand

Thai Baht and US Dollar

I adapted this math story idea from Char Forsten's Math Talk, or telling number stories from illustrations, in the elementary classroom.  My honeymoon to Thailand and Bali gave me plenty of opportunities to use math from understanding the exchange rate between the US Dollar and the Thai Baht or Indonesian Rupiah to learning about the life span and diet of the Asian elephant I took care of for the day when I visited an elephant farm in the hills outside of Chiang Mai.  I will be able to share my experiences with my students, and in doing so they will not only learn more about who I am, but they will also notice they have more background knowledge about math than they may have initially thought.

What kind of experiences will you have this summer that will be worth writing about when returning to school in the fall?