I love the idea of a paperless classroom–and this love stems from somewhere other than my tendency to tree-hug. I think a paperless classroom is current, relevant, and contributes more to our students’ learning than a classroom less dependent on technology ever could.
A paperless classroom would only change my role in a minor way—students wouldn’t need me to “hand out” assignments or readings because they would already have access to them online. This, to me, is a bonus. Students must become more self-sufficient and learn, along with the content taught in the class, how to obtain information from technology. It’s a literacy that all students need to succeed in a world that more and more resembles a paperless society with every Facebook post and Kindle book purchase. So, in this way, I think that a paperless class would change learning by increasing what students are learning about. They still get the content, but the way that they receive the content has changed to become a learning experience in itself. Furthermore, it would change the way we assess or measure learning, because we would want our assessments to align with the way we instructed, which means paperless technology would need to be incorporated into the assessment.
The possibilities for a paperless classroom are far-reaching and exciting. The very presence of technology in the classroom allows us to expand our learning network (because technology puts us in touch with people and ideas from around the world), and when a class is committed to being paperless, our learning network expands even further.
Really nice points. Good teaching is good teaching. But if the technology can support students, hep them prepare, and give them access to information then they can focus on learning.