Self-awareness or surveillance?

As a part of an ongoing print management plan, we are installing print tracking software on all the computers in the district. Here's the e-mail I sent out explaining the project:

Hi folks,

Your technicians will be installing a program called PaperCut* on your classroom/office computer and the computers in student labs over the next few weeks. The first time you print a file, you will be asked to log in with your email username and password. You should only need to log in once and then the program will remember this log in information.

We will be using PaperCut to help raise awareness of our staff members about the amount of printing they are doing and the cost of that printing - both economically to the district and environmentally to the world. We are not rationing or trying to control the amount of printing being done, but just trying to let users track how much printing they actually do.

A small window on your screen will show a running total cost of the print jobs you have created.


The approximate costs will be calculated using these values: printing to the building photocopier $.01; printing to a B&W laser printer $.03; and printing to a color printer $.10 per copy.

By clicking on the Details ... link, you will be taken to a webpage (again, log in with your e-mail username and password) with additional information about your printing account. It will look like this:



The district will have the ability to view and analyze data collected by this program so as to establish a baseline usage report, needed if we choose to embark on a paper reduction plan.

Please contact me if you have any questions, concerns or problems with this program.

Thanks,

Doug

You never quite know what the response will be to such a program. Will it be (actual responses):

LOVE IT!! Good work!

and

Nice.  You come up with the best ideas, Doug! 

and

This is a wonderful idea!!!!!  I wish we would also put something in place to note how many times paper gets thrown into the waste baskets instead of recycling bins.  Could you also note that in your helping us all become more aware? Thanks!!!!

or

Seems rather "Big Brother" to me.

and

Interesting app, Doug, but I sure hope teachers aren't going to be held to a standard that will impede how hard they are already working and providing for their students.  I hope this isn't a subtle way to introduce using too much paper as an evaluation tool.  I believe you are not heading in that direction but I must share I am somewhat offended by this need to better understand (question) my paper use.  But then again I am also somewhat offended that elementary teachers have to have allowances on their paper consumption but high school does not.  OK, so now your thinking I should be writing to Dear Abby, thanks Doug for letting me air my thoughts,

My response to the last comment:

This app, from my perspective, is only one to help raise awareness of resource use - not an evaluation mechanism. I hope teachers realize that every dollar spent on printing is a dollar that cannot be spent on other resources like smaller class sizes, higher teacher salaries, etc. I like to think all our teachers are very responsible regarding both the school budget and our environment and will do what they can to minimize the amount of printing they do.

I know that I had absolutely NO idea of what my personal printing was costing the district before I had this tool. Now I think twice or three times before hitting the print button. I have heard no talk at all about rationing printing in the district.

I hope teachers know me well enough to to know that I will do everything I can to support them and make them more effective.

Here's what what this exchange has had me thinking so much about: I love my job BECAUSE of its inherent unpredictability rather than despite it. There is always something interesting going on in the district - both positive and, frankly, disturbing.

Just this week, I had my first chance to watch a special education teacher work with a student using an iPad. I love the creative ways teachers are using the IWBs with kids - real engagement. It's fun seeing the excitement of a class of third graders logging into GoogleDocs for the first time.  I was proud of the librarian, as I watched the sixth graders present to their peers with the help of a side-show program, when I saw that speaking skills were judged as important as technical skills and they got a chance to use a checklist to help assess each other's work.

During these same visits to our classrooms, I am distressed that teachers are using the video projector to show a movie to kill a Friday afternoon; that kids are too often using drill and kill programs (that would be at home on an Apple II) in the lab; and that some teachers just plain don't use technology at all - including the voice amplification systems in their classrooms. As with any larger district, we have teachers and librarians  building reading skills by encouraging their students to read independently working right along side those teachers who use intrinsic motivation-killing reading programmed instruction. And don't get me started on watching teachers teach test-taking skills rather than things of genuine whole-life value - bending to the test-mania driven by political trends that are less about educating kids and more about discrediting public education. It breaks my heart to hear a classroom teacher say she no longer does engaging activities using technology since online testing has made it impossible for her to schedule lab time. Huge sigh...

Like most humans, I often wish I had a magic wand to simply wave and make all schools the image of what I would envision a perfect school might be. Since no one has come forward in the 30+ years I've been teaching to offer me one, I suspect I will just have to continue nudging, inventing, trying, cajoling, strategizing, and suggesting when I where I can, cherishing even the small victories.

Such a path to change is if nothing else, fascinating.

Thus endeth my Saturday morning rumination.

* I do not endorse any commercial product but I do mention by name products I have actual experience with.