Going paperless

Having recently moved into a brand new building, the Principal delegate of my academy has been trying to push for "The Paperless School". There has been huge resistance from all areas of the school - teachers of almost all departments, administrators and other members of Leadership Team.
In the new building staff and students can only print to the 'Pool' - a centrally located printer that you need a swipe card to access and which records and charges for every printed page. Many believed this was a step too far, but thanks to a determined Principal, access to printers is still restricted. I believe we did not go far enough, so am focusing some research on this issue to try to further the idea of The Paperless School.

There are countless bloggers, tweeters and facebookers already writing about the merits of social media, web 2.0, and other online tools in the classroom, indeed my Media department is totally paperless, however there are a very small amount of teachers who seem truly open to the possibility of going fully paperless.

There are a number of issues to address when considering the possibility of a paperless school:

• Administration
• Teaching and learning
• Teacher resistance
• Notices/memos/notes
• Students class work
• Examinations
• Coursework submission
• Homework
• IT infrastructure
• Plagiarism
• Knowing who actually did the work

The general rhetoric about the future of education is pointing in the direction of  technology becoming more and more integral in schools. But what effect does it have on the learning of our students?

During the next few months I shall investigate the impact of a variety of technologically driven initiatives on learning, ownership of learning, engagement and creativity. I shall also try to discover more about the perception of these initiatives from colleagues and try to use a variety of Leadership and Management techniques to increase the awareness and use of digital technologies in the classroom, pushing towards the Paperless School.