» Why won’t my teachers stop printing? | Education IT | ZDNet.com

» Why won’t my teachers stop printing? Education IT ZDNet.com

For what I spend on toner every year, I could buy quite a few Eees. I could, in fact, think of countless ways to spend that money. I could buy textbooks, athletic supplies, art supplies, RAM upgrades, ergonomic furniture, you name it. What’s actually more disturbing is to remember that my school is fairly small (about 600 students), meaning that larger schools probably spend much more.

I give teachers web pages, training on blogging, course management software, USB drives, and shared folders on file servers. They have laptops or desktops in their rooms. But they still keep printing. Here in the middle of Massachusetts, we’re fairly conservation-minded, so my Seattle tree-hugging, spotted owl-saving tactics tend to resonate with the teachers who kill trees by the forest. At least they resonate for a few minutes until they fire up the copiers and printers and start generating reams of worksheets and handouts. Teachers still request that students not submit work electronically. I’ve even seen those that do accept work via email or digital dropboxes printing it out for grading and correction.

Yet, so often, there simply isn’t any need. We’re not at a point where we could be paperless. Even I’m going to print out my final exams next week. However, we’re certainly at a point where we could drastically reduce our printing needs. How can I change the old mindsets and get teachers to leverage digital means for distributing and collecting materials?

How have you done it? Talk back below and let me know if I just need to let a generation of teachers retire (by which time, the young teachers will have probably bought into our paper-centric paradigm themselves.)

Discussion:
Why won't my teachers stop printing? 4 Comments 10 NEW - last 24 hours RSS Feed-->
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Why won't my teachers stop printing?jack-daniels@... - 01/10/08 Please read the original article.
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1. Printing ... simply another waste of time/energy/etc jack-daniels@... - 01/10/08 I think ya will have to fire 50% if ya get to 'that' point - simply dispense with most of the teachers - why do we have to spoon-feed every crumb of knowlwdge into kids' brains? If it can read the assignment on the screen, let it answer there ..? Less teachers = less printing Maybe fire all the printers too .... I have not purchased a newspaper in 10 years .... where I live part of the year even the Condor has made a comeback..... BR>Jack
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2. RE: Why won't my teachers stop printing? kiglas - 01/10/08 It is not an easy solution, the tangible contact of paper carries a weight for our generation that is not easily replaced. But with new cheaper technology (UMPC, OLPC, EEEPC) we might be able to train the next few generations to give up on the felling of needing a 'Hard Copy'. Also, color e-ink will go replace reams of paper once it is fully developed.
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3. Red pen jshaw4343 - 01/10/08 Unfortunately, teachers (as do most people) prefer editing a hard copy with the proverbial red pen. Nothing beats the easy of circling a wrong answer or mispelled word with that red pen. We've made our documents, electronic, but we haven't made them easier to review and edit. Until someone comes up with better documents or teachers use the technology to develop new methods for submitting and reviewing work, they will continue to print.