Communication is far-reaching and instantaneous. Content can be presented to students in multiple formats and can be interactive. Student data can be sorted and filtered to created custom lessons and learning groups. There is no question that technology supports education in very positive ways.
Along with technology comes the question
that accompanies many new opportunities: “How far can I take this?”.
Some see this question as an exciting challenge: Let’s see just how far
technology can take us and how we can harness it to achieve our goals. It’s a
great question and often leads to new discoveries and tools.
We certainly have not answered this
question yet and we may never discover the limitations to what technology can
do for us. Some educators have chosen to pursue a
“paperless classroom” as one extension of this question. Their goal is to
present content, provide practice, assess learning, record grades, and
communicate all of this digitally.
While it’s certainly an interesting
challenge, I believe the pursuit of a paperless classroom is misguided at best
and actually harmful to students at worst.
1. Unless every student has
access to a device and wi-fi in at home, it’s not going to work. Teachers must accommodate families without devices and internet connections by
providing a hard copy of every homework assignment, newsletter, and note. This accommodation sets students apart as the have-nots. Education should not be an economic issue.
2. Unless every student has access to a device and wi-fi in school, it's not going to work. You need to have 1-to-1 devices in the classroom. If not, you’ll have rotating groups, some of which will have to be using paper and pencil. You then have one foot in each camp, paper and paperless, trying to meet the needs to two opposing systems.
2. Unless every student has access to a device and wi-fi in school, it's not going to work. You need to have 1-to-1 devices in the classroom. If not, you’ll have rotating groups, some of which will have to be using paper and pencil. You then have one foot in each camp, paper and paperless, trying to meet the needs to two opposing systems.
3. Paperless is impersonal. Many students need
interaction with their teacher rather than learning over an interface. While
there are certainly excellent interactive programs available – I’ve used many –
they still lack the personal, specific give-and-take that you can only get when
a student is with his/her teacher or another student.
4. It’s only as reliable as today’s internet
connection. If you put all of your eggs into the technology basket, when
technology fails, so do your lessons. Lack of IT support is a huge stressor in
the classroom. Having to prepare a back-up plan for every lesson can
significantly increase a teacher’s workload.
5. Research shows that the physical act of
writing makes more and better brain connections than typing does. The act of
writing by hand is slower and allows the student to think about the topic more
deeply, where typing can lead to mindless transcription.
6. Research also points out that it is more
difficult to develop “cognitive mapping” on e-readers. Some paperless
proponents do not include hard copy books in their goals. Other teachers want to
access all of their texts through devices. With no physical books to page
through, students lose opportunities to go
back and forth in the text to find words and sections and to see the structure
of the reading.
7. It’s unbalanced.
Pursuing a classroom with only
technology is
just as unbalanced as pursuing a classroom with no technology. I hesitate to embrace extremes.
Extremes in anything tend to
discount at least half of the population involved. In a paperless classroom,
you lose the opportunity to address the
varied and wide-ranging needs of your students.
I suggest to teachers who are struggling
with the paperless question to pursue their goal through the other meaning of
“paperless”: instead of “no paper”, try “less paper”.
Your school system has probably already eliminated a great deal of paper by having a digital record-keeping system for attendance and grades. Assuming you have adequate devices, learning to use learning platforms such as Google Classroom can significantly reduce the papers required for practice and assessment.
I hope, though, that teachers never lose sight of the power of the hand-printed word, the influence of holding a book in one’s hand, or the impact of a lesson personally taught by a teacher.
Your school system has probably already eliminated a great deal of paper by having a digital record-keeping system for attendance and grades. Assuming you have adequate devices, learning to use learning platforms such as Google Classroom can significantly reduce the papers required for practice and assessment.
I hope, though, that teachers never lose sight of the power of the hand-printed word, the influence of holding a book in one’s hand, or the impact of a lesson personally taught by a teacher.
What do you think? I’d love to hear your
thoughts!
