The Paperless Classroom (Or how to kill trees one ream at a time)

For many years pundits have been talking about the concept of a “Paperless Office.” The concept is simple really. Instead of passing paper memos by interoffice mail, everything goes by email. Documents are all stored on the office server which is backed up off site. (Not really, but we all know it should be.)

Schools are all about paper. We are probably responsible for the death of more trees than anybody except Congress. We believe in handouts. We handout everything. We handout the rules, and then hand them out again later when too many people have broken them. I don’t mean just students either. In my career, I have even received memos on paper that scolded the faculty for making too many copies. To be fair, sometimes those tirades were delivered on a half sheet of paper, so I guess that was a good thing.

At one school district I worked at, all the elementary teachers were given a secret code to type in to the copy machine. We soon realized that it wasn’t very secret, all the teachers at the same grade level had the same number. It was pretty divisive when we would spend time at lunch arguing about who used up all our copies for the month. It wasn’t me.

This also forced us to be resourceful. When the secretary in the main office was out sick, we gained access to the copier code list. We knew where it was, and when she wasn’t there to guard it, we stole it. We passed it around and that month the Bus Garage, who had not made any copies in three years, was the number one user. They made every single copy, according to the report. The principal didn’t acknowledge what happened. She just issued all new numbers. And the printing went on.

Everybody hates it when the copy machine goes down. Especially the tech department. We know that all those ink jet printers that are out there in the classroom will begin churning out class sets of handouts because teachers cannot use the copier. We will be making the rounds to replace the ink cartridges. We mark each cartridge with the room and the date. This helps us to keep track of usage so we can order enough during budget time. But the real reason is so we can laugh to see that people actually steal each other’s ink cartridges.

The ink in those printers is very expensive. The printers are not. I once bought a name brand printer at WalMart for $29.95. When I went back to get ink for it, the ink cost $29.95. I was very tempted to just buy a new printer. We try everything to keep ink usage down, but nothing really works. Not even a memo.

Every year I have heard the lecture on paper and ink cartridge usage. Every year I know our schools are spending more on paper. We are not using less. We do not have a “Paperless School” mentality. I have tried to help. I like to think I am environmentally conscious. I recycle in my classroom. I once gave bonus points to my students if they printed on both sides of the paper. Now, I just insist on it. I argue with the custodians who dump recycling bins into the regular garbage can. I plant trees at school and at home. What will it take to make progress?

My current school district is moving on this slowly. We do send emails for a lot of communication where we used to send interoffice envelopes. But we still send a lot of those. There are people that print out their email like Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss. I get some memos by email and by snail both. Part of the problem has been that with the way our network was deployed, not all teachers had equal access. Some had email, and some did not. The teachers who don’t have network access are being phased in, but that takes time. “Dead Tree Time.”

This year, our high school is going to an electronic attendance procedure. We have already been piloting it in some homerooms. The administrative program that we use has struggled with this new process and we had to throw money at the problem. We needed to update our software and address some hardware issues. Not to mention there are still some teachers out there that don’t like, trust, or want to use a computer. As time goes by there are fewer of these. Peer pressure and retirement weeds out the Luddites. Also, they got a memo from the office telling them they had to do it this way...

There is also a movement to centralize to big laser printers and remove the dozens of ink jet printers on desks in classrooms and offices. They are expensive to keep operating, hard to fix, and not meant for the load they are often called on to carry. You can imagine that removing them is meeting with resistance. I hate having to walk down the hall to get my printout. I left that behind years ago when I dropped off my deck of cards and picked up my “run” later. Already there are some privileged few who can print directly to the copy machine. Not me, but others. I bought my own printer. ($29.95)

With my .mac account and other network access at work, I can move information pretty fast between all the computers I use. I automatically iSync my documents and then what I want is always there. I just wish that storage on .mac wasn’t so expensive.

Currently, I don’t hand out many papers. I either project on the wall with a data projector, or I place handouts and slideshows in a public file that all students have access to. I plan to use a drop box on the network for students to submit more of their work. They will still have to print some assignments, but this will save a lot of paper. This will be more of a hassle for me because I can grade hardcopy papers pretty fast, but I am committed. I’ll let you know how it works out.