From QR Codes to Word Clouds
In service of shaping Family Time into a more community-centered time, we will begin peppering in activities that focus a bit more specifically on ways to build connections within the Desert Mission church community. And the first one requires us all to utilize what may be a new skill for some folks – the ability to scan a QR code – in order to access an activity that is designed to help us create something new together!
QR codes themselves might seem new, but they’ve actually been around since the last century! The Japanese corporation Denso Wave, a subsidiary of Toyota, developed QR codes way back in 1994 (shocking as it might seem, that was indeed 30 years ago) as a way to track automobile parts during the assembly process. QR codes improve on bar codes through their ability to encode way more information. They can be scanned right from your phone rather than requiring a specialized device. And the information on the destination page, whether it’s a restaurant menu, a feedback form, or the front page of our website, can be updated without the QR code needing to change.
In order to scan a QR code, take out your phone and open the camera function. Point your camera at the QR code as if you’re going to take a picture of it, but don’t take a picture! The camera will read the QR code and create a pop up that asks if you want to go to the web page the code is linked to. Touch that pop up and it will take you there! On some devices, you’ll have to be in QR code mode in order to read the code – just scroll over in the camera settings like you would to take video instead of a photo, and the camera will be able to read the code automatically.
We hope you’ll use the steps above to complete our bonus activity – a Desert Mission word cloud! The QR code in the graphic for this post takes you to a Google Form that will ask you to type in a word that describes how you feel about Desert Mission. Enter your word, click “Submit,” and the word will be sent to Jen, who will put all of the responses together into a visual that contains everybody’s words! You can fill out the form more than once if you’d like to submit multiple words. And if you hit an obstacle at any point in the process, contact Jen and she’ll help you figure it out! [If using the QR code is a challenge, but you still want to participate in the word cloud, here’s a direct link to the Google Form]
As we begin to use more QR codes around the church (including in the bulletin), we hope you’ll feel confident in using them to connect with the Desert Mission community. And if you have ideas of other ways we could be using technology to connect, please share them with us in person or on Facebook or Instagram.
