The More in Paper Less

One of the lures of having technology in the classroom is the ability to go paperless.  I have to admit, prior to this pilot program, I was a bit of a paper junkie.  I coordinated units by color, bought specialty papers for special assignments and handouts and even copied passages from the books we read so students could annotate.  So I thought it would be difficult to reduce, or god forbid eliminate, paper in my classroom.   And yet, finding ways to go paperless has been surprisingly easy and even a bit liberating.

Those who tout the advantages of a paperless classroom focus on the reductions.  A paperless classroom is good for the environment.  It reduces the disorganization that often lingers like sour body odor after the average teenager.  It lessens the amount of class time spent on handing out and collecting assignments.  I did some quick calculating and I estimate I averaged about 2-3 minutes passing around paper.  Multiple that by 5 times a day and 5 days a week; that’s 2000 minutes or about 33 hours a school year.   And this doesn’t even cover the countless hours I spend at the copy machine.

All of these are tremendous advantages to being paperless, but the greatest “less” is the weight in my correction bag each day.  Of course, there is a danger of having my to-do list on the cloud rather than constantly slung over my shoulder.  But lightening my workbag allows me to leave school behind, if just for a few hours.  And relaxing at the end of the day has allowed me to achieve more balance between my personal and professional lives.  While less paper means a reduction in certain aspects of my job, I am most surprised by the more it has created.

There are more opportunities to do formative assessments and provide feedback to my students during the process of learning instead of waiting until the final product.  There are more authentic opportunities to teach students that writing is a process and that revision can happen in real time.  There are more ways for students to track their own learning, to set goals, and to reflect on both failure and success.  There are more ways to communicate with students and to allow learning to happen outside the walls of my classroom.  There are more opportunities for me to teach from my pajamas and to help students sort out confusion when most of their learning occurs — after dark. 

I don’t want to be too idealistic or over sell this change in my teaching.  The switch to electronic curriculum has definitely meant more work on the front end.  Setting up shared folders and converting handouts into templates does not happen in a couple of keystrokes.  But I can already see, just a few weeks into this pilot program, my students getting more out of my lessons.  And more importantly, because an electronic classroom allows for more personalization, I am getting more out of them as well.