Paper cuts

Paper is a wonderful thing. We have enjoyed it in its various forms for centuries, and its history can be traced back to the papyrus of ancient Egypt. When Johannes Gutenburg came along with his wonderful 13th century invention, society was gifted mass produced text based communication, and suddenly, everyone needed to learn to read. Printed text quickly became the first medium of mass-communication. Paper and printing have certainly contributed a great deal to the world of education and learning. Now, living in 2010, time has moved on, but I'm left wondering if some people's minds aren't still mouldering back in the last century. I enter my office space this morning, and I am greeted with a mountain of assignments, half a tree's worth of wood, pulped down to make paper that contains the printed thoughts of my students. They are all bound neatly, labelled, and sit there waiting my attention. I am now expected to plough through this pile of paper in my office (the assignments are too numerous and too heavy for me to trog home with me) and eventually come down on some judgement as to the individual worth of each assignment. I have to write on the assignments with a pencil or pen to try to give feedback to each student.

Last year, I delivered a module for some of my first year teacher students, in which not a single sheet of paper changed hands in any direction. It was the first time I had done it. There were no paper handouts. They were all in digital format. All the transactions were conducted online through wiki, e-mail and blogs, and there were no paper based submissions either. All the assignments for that module were submitted online using our in-house submission system SCHOLAR. It worked reasonably well for a pilot, although there were some problems with unfamiliarity on both sides. The advantages were clear to see. Students didn't need to travel into the university to submit their assignments (many live quite some distance away from the central campus). I was able to see at a glance who had sumitted and who hadn't. I could check very easily for plagiarised work, and ultimately, it benefitted the students because I could colour code my remarks and attach them to their work so they had clear and instant feedback on how well they had done and what they needed to do to improve their work for future submissions. Everyone was happy.

Unfortunately there are colleagues who don't like the system, or are reluctant to use it. I see fellow academics struggling about with boxes full of stapled tomes which they intend to give their students as handouts. Full forests of paper disappear into the classrooms and lecture halls, where they are doled out dutifully to hordes of students, who generally glance at them, leaf through them if they are curious, and then in most cases - they file them under 'B' for bin. Some are inventive and use the shredded handouts to line the cages of their pet hamsters. There's another part to the equation: Some external examiners insist even now, on paper assignments. Are they dinosaurs? That's what they are used to, and that's what they require. Perhaps when selecting future external examiners, a demonstrable lack of aversion to new technoology could be one of the selection criteria.

I say, save the forests and let's go digital. Resources are easier to transport, easier to store and retrieve, and they can be shared more readily. Hernias will be eliminated and repetitive strain injuries reduced. I know there are objections from those who find it difficult to read digital text, or who like the idea that they can have something in their hands to write on, highlight, and file away. But we live in 2010, and technology can do as much for us now as Gutenburg's Press did for people back in 1450. Please, please, let's try to drag our education systems screaming into the 21st Century. Paper has its place. But there is so much more we can do to make our own lives and the lives of our students better if we migrate over to digital media.

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Paper cuts by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.