Going Paperless Caution

By Sean on Thursday, May 19, 2011 - Related Tags:- news, research

I recently surveyed over 50 teachers who are teaching in a 1-to-1 laptop program grades 6 - 12. I posed many questions about their feelings with regard to the technology they have available in their classrooms, which includes interactive whiteboards and student laptops, a projector, etc. Not surprisingly, 90% of the teachers felt like they had all of the technology they needed in their classrooms. Most teachers appreciated having the student laptops as well with only 12% of teachers felt that teaching with technology takes more time than it is worth. However, I also asked a question about going paperless as follows:

A paperless classroom is possible in my teaching future

This item generated quite a bit of buzz from the teachers. Nearly 35% of teachers disagreed with this statement and another 14% strongly disagreed. That's about one half of respondents who do not believe a paperless classroom is possible while they are teaching. And these are teachers who are potentially using computers and having students use computers daily. Thirty percent of teachers felt like a paperless classroom is possible now or in the future with 22% indicating that they are unsure.

I later had a generic item on the survey to allow respondents a chance to provide feedback. Many of the responses targeted the paperless item on the survey even though this was an open-ended item. And the responses seemed to suggest that even though a fully paperless classroom may not be possible, some teachers noted that they have greatly reduced their use of paper anyway. Some teachers expressed frustration with the fact that standardized tests are still largely paper assessments. Other teachers noted that equation editors are still too slow to replace doing math on paper, but that they're hopeful for technology to improve, etc. And yet more teachers noted that they are frustrated in still having paper-based textbooks.

The paperless textbook comments reminded me of a session I attended recently at the 2011 Council for Exceptional Children Convention and Expo in Washington D.C. In fact, I had the good fortune to share a session time with Dr. Cynthia Okolo of Michigan State Universiy. I mention this because she was presenting on her research around digital text. Preliminary findings from her research suggests that students with disabilities in reading do not benefit from digitally based text. The assumption is that these students with reading disabilities would benefit from digital text more than paper-based text because the digital text has extra functionality (e.g., text-to-speech, providing a definition, linking to a wiki-based page or a multimedia version of the text, providing related links, etc.). While the digital text can do all of these things, Dr. Okolo's group is finding that digital text is no more beneficial than traditional paper-based text. However, she did note that students prefer digitally based text.

The implication from this research is that maybe the rush to digitize text and make more text accessible has erroneously assumed that students know how to take advantage of the enhanced features that come with digital versions. Students should explicitly be taught strategies for using digital texts and teachers should model these strategies as they move more paperless in a 1-to-1 computing environment.