Mind the Gap: Bridging Digital Portfolios with Physical Artifacts
By Justin R. Cary
Part 1: The Quick Response Code
Ever seen one of these things? This is a QR code. That stands for Quick Response, just in case you were wondering. This QR code is actually the title of this article; it is just another way of encoding those digital letters up above into a visual language that cameras can understand. It might look like a bunch of random squares to our eyes, but your phone camera can see those squares and decode them into letters the same way our brains can decode letters into language that we understand. Pretty cool right?
“a bridge between the physical world around us and the digital world that lives inside our phones, on the internet and behind our computer screens”
QR codes were first developed by the Toyota automobile manufacturer to manage inventory in their factories and have since cropped up in all kinds of places. Click here to see some really nifty QR codes at work. QR codes are being used in all kinds of cool ways. Just check out some of the pics here to see some really creative and unique ways to use QR codes. The common thread here is that people are using QR codes to connect digital content to the physical world; and this is really what a QR code is at its core: a bridge between the physical world around us and the digital world that lives inside our phones, on the internet and behind our computer screens. It is this space between the physical and digital that I am very interested in and where my project comfortably sits.
Part 2: Writing Portfolios and Jelly Boxes
Student writing portfolios are a major part of the First-Year Writing curriculum I teach every Fall and Spring semester at my University. Writing studies pedagogy is very big on the role of the curated, collected, selected and reflected student writing portfolio and I use portfolios extensively. Over the years I have dabbled in many different platforms, genres and tools to help students create portfolios that demonstrate their learning, give them chances to reflect on their work from a holistic point of view and publish texts to a variety of different audiences. Recently my University opened a brand new makerspace and visualization lab in our library. (PS: It’s amazing). For the first time, we are now able to offer students opportunities to use 3D printers to create their own physical objects. My favorite of all the 3D printers are the transparent Jelly Boxes that let you see the guts of the printer as it toils away, pumping out hot filament onto a print board layer by layer in a color of your choice. The writing classroom is probably not the first place you would imagine a 3D printer playing a major role but thoughts like this usually get me excited so I decided to think of a way to use these new Jelly Boxes to think about portfolios in a totally differently. I give you exhibit A: This is my first draft of a 3D printed digital student writing portfolio. The idea behind this was to have students convert their digital portfolio links into a QR code using a free QR code maker website, render that QR code in a 3D modeling program (we use the free, online tool called Tinkercad) and then 3D print that QR code onto a basic geometric shape (mainly to keep costs down). This one, sadly, did not work. The QR code was too small and the individual shapes fused together during the print. Not scannable.
The next draft was bigger and this time I colored it in with a Sharpie to make the contrast more distinct. I thought for sure this one would scan and work great, but alas, it did not. At this point I began to see some real connections between the writing process and creating these 3D objects. Each time the print failed, I would go back to TinkerCad and tweak my design, resize the shapes, raise or lower the QR code pop-out, change the dimensions and play around with other kinds of objects. I felt just like writing.
On the next iteration I decided to try all sorts of different things. From inlaid QR codes to more raised up ones to making the cube as big as I could (this one was a bit pricey), I even added my name and my Twitter profile as a QR code. Sadly, this design failed too.
“At this point I began to see some real connections between the writing process and creating these 3D objects.”
Back to the Tinker-board. I did a little reaching online about QR code 3D prints and I saw that some people had been able to do this and make them work so I know it was possible. I kept at it, like any good writer would, tweaking my design, talking with colleagues, reading articles online and doing all I could to make this thing scannable.
Then I discovered a secret. TinkerCad, the 3D printing program, has a built in QR 3D object maker! Up until this point, I was generating these QR codes as 2D images and then converting them to .SVG files using an online site. Because of all this conversion, the 3D object version of the QR code was coming out with missing pieces and the accuracy was not where it needed to be. Once I discovered TinkerCad had a QR object built in, the fidelity of 3D QR code vastly improved. I also flatted the design and made a ‘coaster’ sort of object instead of a cube. Let’s check out the end results in part 3.
Part 3: Connecting the Digital and the Physical
“This process makes something tangible out of the often ephemeral content we create online and in digital composing spaces.”
So here is the final product. That orange, flat QR code works using a free QR code reader app I downloaded on my phone. This particular QR code goes directly to my professional portfolio. Now, this small square contains all the digital writing, images, videos and pictures I have ever created and selected to share. It is all right there and can sit comfortably in the palm of your hand. I can physically hand this object ot someone and say, ‘here is everything I have ever written” and I think that is pretty cool.
More than that though, this physical object creates a new way for students to think about publication of their digital work. No longer are they forced to share a link via an email or submit an assignment to a box in an LMS. Now, students can think about sharing their work in new and fascinating ways. For example, I can now convert this object into a stamp; all I need is an ink pad. Then, I can easily press my portfolio QR code stamp onto papers, posters, etc. as a new way to share my work. I am also fascinated by the idea that something so large (all my digital work) can ‘fit’ into something I can hold in the palm of my hand (maybe it’s the Doctor Who fan in me; it’s bigger on the inside!). I can see this work going into some really cool places where students are printing objects by using rhetorically sound frameworks, considerations of audience and creating compositions to address real world needs. As another example, one of my current students 3D printed the logo for Reddit and included inlays on the back with some common Subreddit rules of conduct. This all makes me wonder about the nature of writing and composition; how students might might through modes and genres of writing (written words, multi-modal texts, podcasts, videos, 3D prints) all as a way to compose in new ways and create cutting edge texts.
Students in my writing courses are working right now to create and 3D print their portfolios. This process makes something tangible out of the often ephemeral content we create online and in digital composing spaces. 3D printing is a way to bridge that gap between the physical world and the digital world in a real way and make these digital compositions more real for students. I hope to continue this work in new ways moving forward so please leave some feedback or contact me on Twitter (@justinrcary) with ideas or suggestions for going forward. In the end, the potential for this combination of QR codes, 3D printed objects and digital portfolios makes for a fascinating journey into a new ‘composing process’ and offers students new ways to publish and share their work.
