I’ve read some about teachers who have gone paperless. I like the idea of going paperless and in the past I didn’t feel like I had the resources to actually implement it. Now I think I could . . . but it is scary. I love the idea of NEVER having to run down to the copier at the last minute - only to find that it is broken. I love the idea of saving trees, and not having piles of papers around my room. I love the idea of a student never being able to tell me they lost it in their binder. It seems to me like a pretty huge leap and I’m not sure why. As I just typed that list of things that get me excited about it I am really pumped up. I think it is like when I gave up my overhead projector (yes, I’ve been teaching that long - you knew you had really been working when you came home at the end of the day with blue and green fingers). It wasn’t comfortable at first but eventually I really liked that it gave me more flexibility.
The main downside I see is training the kids. For it to work, it will have to be mainly Google Docs based. We are hearing rumors that the kids are for sure getting Chromebooks but it could switch back to ipads. I think it is going to take a lot of time upfront to get them used to how I want things done, how I will collect papers, naming files, etc. The more I think about it, the more I want to attempt it.
This year I made the decision that any paper I handed the students I would have in digital format, mainly .pdfs. That has been great and has completely eliminated me dealing with makeup work (the kids still ask).
Now that I finish typing this post, I think I’ve decided to try to go paperless. Pretty sure there are some logistics involved that I still need to do some cogitating (wow, that’s a real word that spell check didn’t underline) on. I will keep you posted on the cogitating.
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