One hundred acres of rainforest are cut down each minute to help fuel our 85 million tons of annual paper consumption in the United States. This equates to each American using about a single 100-foot Douglas fir tree every year in paper products.1 These products include the notebooks, handouts, books, printed documents and more that are used in classrooms across the United States. While at times it is necessary for students to have paper copies or hand-written notes, paper conservation is a lesson that can begin in the classroom with the help of technology.
Why Teach Paperless?
The use of paper is not only costly to districts’ tight budgets, but it also is hard on our environment. Computers allow us to create and share documents without printing or putting pen to paper. Cloud computing programs extend the reach of materials outside the classroom. Teachers no longer need to print and send homework assignments home with students at the end of the school day; now they can simply post instructions online. In addition, students can take notes and create projects on computers. Then they can email or send completed assignments electronically. Green teaching is more than possible for many classrooms. Implementing paperless methods into your teaching practices will help students to become more globally conscious citizens making sustainable choices in their lives.
This diagram, created in Inspiration®, may be downloaded for any non-commercial use.
What Tools Help You Go Green?
While Inspiration®, InspireData® and Kidspiration® have encouraged students and teachers to brainstorm digitally, Webspiration Classroom™ Service truly helps you to teach paperless. The web-based, collaborative program can transform many of your routine assignments into green, paperless activities.
Below are just a few ideas you can incorporate into your classroom:
- Create your class syllabus in Webspiration Classroom, distribute copies directly to students or post the document in the Document Manager as an assignment, school template or personal template.
- Allow your students to research online and add hyperlinks to their visual diagram or outline, rather than printing countless reference pages to use at home.
- Instruct students to publish their assignments to a web page in Webspiration Classroom, where their work can then be shared on a website or blog rather than printed to share with the class.
- Have students easily submit and return homework assignments to you electronically rather than printing and turning-in the documents in class.
- Create the handouts for your lessons in Webspiration Classroom, which you can then distribute to your students electronically after the lecture.
- Use Webspiration Classroom to keep track of all changes and comments, so students don’t need to print multiple drafts while editing and working toward a final copy of their essay. View my recent post on process writing to learn more.
- Evaluate students’ work online at school or at home while grading assignments and projects.
With so much technology at our fingertips, we can cut back on our paper consumption. Webspiration Classroom is one step in the direction toward a paperless classroom that helps develop your students into responsible, global citizens. Commit your classroom to cutting back on paper waste and try a few of these web-based solutions in your class this month!
What tools are you already using to help you teach paperless? Check back next week to find out what tools help you reach beyond the classroom.
Mona Westhaver
President and Co-founder, Inspiration Software
- “Frequent Questions | Paper Recycling | US EPA.” US Environmental Protection Agency. Web. 29 Oct. 2010. <http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/paper/faqs.htm>. [↩]
Further justification to avoid paper in favour of electronic comes from analysing students’ pattern of working and living. More students carry all they need for their school day in a backpack. More paper, more weight and more to sift through looking for one piece. Students have divorced parents and so have their paper resources scattered in several locations. Searching through all their paper resources even if they do have them in one place can be time consuming whereas electronic resources can be kept to hand and searched so much more easily. The essay no longer is ruined by a squashed banana intended for lunch if it can be on a portable drive or hosted online.
Tricia
Tricia, You’ve raised some great points here to further support the effort to teach paperless. When students’ work is hosted on the web, it can alleviate so many of the issues you brought up. As an educator, are you using online tools in this way?
This is exactly why I built http://www.thekidreport.org/. As a parent, keeping track of all that paper is equally ridiculous.
I’ve found there’s a bit of a hurdle to get teachers to distribute information online. There’s always a few parents that aren’t online, so they print out copies for everyone instead. It’s tough to do both.
Those teachers that are able to put everything online love it.
Thanks for posting!
Hi Mark,
I really liked your idea for The Kid Report! Have you had a chance to check out more online tools for students’ homework assignments like Webspiration Classroom? I’d love to hear what you think about students completing assignments online. Thanks for stopping by!