Patrick C. Daly, Superintendent

QR Codes You may have seen these strange symbols appearing everywhere: in the supermarket, newspapers, on the subway and even on products.  But what are they and how could they be used in education? Quick Response codes, or QR codes, are two-dimensional codes first designed by Toyota to track vehicles during the manufacturing process.  The code appears in two-dimensional form on a sign, in a paper, or on a product and the user scans the code with a QR reader.  These readers can be easily downloaded onto a mobile smartphone such as the Droid or iPhone.  The user opens the QR Scanner application, holds the phone over the code, and the scanner recognizes the code and immediately transmits the information to the user. What information can be communicated? There are many types of information that can be communicated through a QR code.   The most common content type would be the URL of a website.  Scanning the code would bring the reader to a website ...

A Focus on the Essential Systemically we have been working on identifying the most important ideas that are key to the vision and mission of the North Reading Public Schools.   The process of involving administrators, teachers, and school councils in this process has allowed all stakeholders to help define what is essential for the North Reading school community.   Technology is one of the most challenging areas to focus as something cutting edge appears to be emerging every day.   This year as a district we have focused on the exploration of two main areas: the educational website as a means of extending classroom learning and the SMARTboard and iPAD tools as a way of increasing interactive classroom learning.   Many educators have been engaged in professional development and exploration of website design, SMART technologies, and iPAD trainings and are bringing this knowledge and experience to their classrooms.   As a result, students are able...