Going Paperless
The hip new trend is to “be green”. Do your part to save the environment. When my instructor asked me to present on a topic of my choosing to my peers and lead a group discussion about current topics in technology, I chose to “go green”. Why not? Everyone is doing it!
The more I researched my topic for the presentation the more ways I learned how as an educator I could cut back (way back) on the amount of paper products I used in my classroom. I could stop lugging around my heavy book bag to each classroom I taught in. As one blog even mentioned, I could ultimately loose 20 lbs by going paperless! (See Link) What a deal! To me the benefits of going paperless far outweigh the negatives. With the advancement of technology and more reliable access to digital resources, there is no excuse why I can’t do the same.
Since my discussion with my peers, I have tried to make more changes to my teaching habits. One thing I am having trouble letting go of is keeping a hard copy of my gradebook. Many of my peers and colleagues have already converted to using only a digital gradebook, but for some reason I need that tangible object for my sanity or security. More than anything I think it is a mental block that is preventing me from switching over. No one said breaking habits was easy, but someday…
I believe that schools and educators will go through a “facelift” of sorts during my tenure as a teacher. By the time I retire, the face of edcuation will have vastly different features from when I started my career.
2 Comments »
Leave a Reply
-
Flickr Photos
More Photos
-
Archives
- December 2009 (3)
- October 2009 (1)
- September 2009 (1)
- August 2009 (2)
- December 2008 (1)
- November 2008 (3)
- October 2008 (4)
- September 2008 (6)
- August 2008 (1)
-
Categories
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
My school has really stressed the importance of going paperless. Our paper budget has been decreased because of the economy, and they see it as unnecessary because of technology. While usually I would definitely embrace this, my students no longer have personal laptops, so all of their work is now done on paper. In addition, my students’ this year are all much lower in their reading levels, and the textbook is too difficult for many of them to read. Therefore, I must make copies of supplemental readings to teach my curriculum. I also do not have enough textbooks to send home with each 6th grader (nor would the be beneficial, even if I did). If I choose to send homework home, I must make copies of a reading or a worksheet for them to do independently. So while I do make an effort to save paper in class, this year I am finding even more challenging than usual.
Comment by Sarah | December 6, 2009 |
Hi Kate!
Your post made me smile, and I liked how you linked “going green” with increasing our use of digital tools in the classroom. In a lot of ways, we actually could save a lot of trees by decreasing the amount of paper we use for handouts, papers, tests, quizzes, etc. Increasing our use of digital tools and encouraging our students to do the same is something we as educators have to really consider.
Our school actually requires us to have a hard copy of our gradebook, even though we’ve been using digital ones as long as I’ve been there. I personally think it’s pointless for us because they don’t even look at them closely! They just check to see if we have one. We could probably turn in an empty one, and they wouldn’t even know if we used it or not…:o\.
This is the first year that I’ve kind of made my way around having to keep a hard copy version and digital version at the same time. I just print off a hard copy from the system that we currently use (Skyward). I have to make readjustments on excel, but to me, it’s just been easier to download my gradebook every so often. I know several teachers who are doing the same thing as me. The funny thing is…we’re still using paper!
Comment by hyum123 | December 6, 2009 |