The Benefits of a Paperless Classroom

One of the challenges for many teachers at the start of the 2020s has been moving from an in-person, paper and pencil learning environment to a fully digital classroom. Now that we are shifting back to normal (or a new normal... whatever you want to call it!), some teachers are ditching paper and pencil, while others want to yeet their school-issued laptop out of their classroom window. I have been about 80-90% paperless in my classroom pre-pandemic, and am fully paperless now. Making your classroom paperless saves time and streamlines your classroom in a variety of ways. Here is four of those ways...

1. No more "my dog ate my homework!" or "I left it at home!"

Even if the dog ate the iPad, your students' school work is typically saved automatically in a "cloud" somewhere. Many schools use G-Suite for Education, which automatically saves all work done. Your Google Docs, Slides, etc. takes several steps to delete (no, Google Drive does not delete things on it's own) and can be restored if deleted.

Students have access to their schoolwork on any device, anywhere they go. Going digital for classwork or homework leaves no excuses (unless they have no internet at home, of course!) - the student either did their work or they did not. Having revision history holds students accountable and provides proof to parents that their little angel did not, indeed, do their homework. And no, Google Docs did not "delete all of the work" either...

2. Easy access to accommodation and modification tools

Going digital with classroom assignments and resources opens a whole new world of tools for your students with learning disabilities. You can make modifications on the fly by opening a students assignment and editing it while they're working. Fonts and colors can be easily adjusted. Differentiating tasks is that much easier by being able to assign different students different tasks with the click of a button.

A really cool tool that many edtech apps offer is known as the Immersive Reader, created by Microsoft. With this tool, students can change the size and coloring of fonts for better readability and have texts read back to them. This tool has been especially helpful for my emerging English Language Learners, since it can read text that they don't fully understand back to them in Spanish.

3. Students will learn necessary 21st century skills

When educators push back on using digital tools in their classroom, I become disheartened. To me, these teachers are holding their students back from competing in the world we live in today. Long gone are the days of paper and pencil in many areas of life. College papers are typed on laptops and often submitted electronically. Businesses are increasingly using tablets and websites to take and process orders. Emails and texts are regular forms of communication.

Using educational technology regularly helps students to develop proper computer literacy skills needed to be successful in the 21st century. These skills include being able to…

• Type with proper language and grammar

• Send well written emails to teachers, future employers/professors, classmates, etc.

• Navigate credible sources on the internet

• Connect virtually with the world in an appropriate manner

4. Automatic Grading!!!

If nothing else convinces you to go digital, I pose you with the biggest time saver ever - automatic grading! Most learning management systems have an assessment tool feature (like Canvas or Schoology) or Google Forms makes it easy to create a test or quiz. All you have to do is plug in your questions and answers. Of course, written responses will need to be manually graded, but you will save SO MUCH time not having to grade multiple choice questions.

I could go on for days about various benefits of a paperless classroom, so many one day I'll do a part two 🤣 For now though, here are a few resources I've created to enhance my classroom instruction:

• Contactless Digital Classroom Sign-Out Hall Pass Google Form AND Barcode Display - No more germy clipboards and pencils! Students can use this Google Form and barcode on their device to sign out of class.

• Rainbow Colorful Daily, Weekly, Agenda EDITABLE Google Slides - Use for daily and weekly agendas. Can post to your learning management system for easy student access!

• Digital Class Contract Google Forms IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH - This is where my students sign off on class expectations and procedures, as well as where they and their families can tell me about themselves. All information is collected via Google Forms and can be exported to a Google Sheet for easy organization!