When I was still teaching English seven years ago, I did all I could to avoid using paper. I had my students save their compositions in a folder on the network, and then I graded them by using the tracking changes option in Word. I even put worksheets on the network for them. On the rare occasion that I did give them work to do on paper, they complained that it wasn't digital.
That was seven years ago, and wikispaces didn't even exist yet. The web has evolved so drastically in this century that we have many, many tools available to us and to our students to avoid the use of paper.
Why would anyone want to avoid using paper? Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but as an English teacher, I had PILES of papers to carry around with me. Who wants that when I could just access them on a secure wiki or other site on the web, or even just download them to a jump drive? And with the use of Sharepoint in VBCPS, we have yet another option to avoid paper.
Beyond the personal advantages, think of the money we could save every year if an entire school would actually go paperless. And then think of the impact on the environment. I seriously rarely use paper at all. (Anyone who owns an iPhone knows paper is not necessary.) I was almost able to reach the point that this teacher has when I taught, and if I were teaching now, this would be my classroom:
1 comment:
I totally agree! I wonder if we will ever see the day when things really go that way. Why do people feel so compelled to print everything? I once knew a teacher (just a few years ago) who printed EVERY email she received. And nothing would deter her. Yikes!
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