BFTP: Cost of paper

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post January 31, 2009. As we began planning our new middle school, each member of the team was handed a big-ass three-ring binder and a couple dozen sheets of paper. Maybe schools are ahead on the paperless quest? 

In Printing The NYT Costs Twice As Much As Sending Every Subscriber A Free Kindle, Nicholas Carlson does the math using the cost of printing a year's worth of the New York Times.

How much paper would need to be eliminated from a student's school year to pay for an e-book reader? Or a netbook? Or an inexpensive tablet?

• textbooks
• worksheets and study guides
• novels and supplimentary reading
• forms, permission slips, newsletters
• student work turned in on paper

How much is your district now paying for print versions of textbooks, paper, copiers, printers, toner, support, repairs, printer salaries, storage spaces, delivery costs, and other print related costs over, say, three years? Divide total by number of students. Is it more or less than $300?

Plus kids get to experience keeping digitally organized. Not a bad life-long skill that more adults need to master.

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Bonus rant from October 7, 2010.

When a former superintendent used to ask me (jokingly? hopefully?) when I was planning to retire, I always responded, "The day every student in school has a computer and all the skills needed to use it effectively." I'm still fine with that criteria, but I am going to add another one: "When there are no more three-ring binders used in the district."

I hate these things, but if you are like me, you have at least a half dozen lining your book shelves. Curriculum guides, emergency plans, technology plans, vendor proposals - heaven knows what else. I've even been the perp in creating a couple. My best was the mega Y2K preparedness notebook that seemed to take up much of my year 1999. Nothing like impending disaster to bring out the three-ringbinder mania in people.

How simple and how common-sensical to transfer the contents of all three-ring binders to a wiki, GoogleDoc folder, or even a repository of PDF files where the content can be linked and searched*. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that 99% of the material in most binders was printed from a computer file anyway.

Just think - no more finding, dragging to meetings and updating, page-by-page a print binder. Everyone would have access to the latest updates and from anywhere. No more cooridinating multiple editors.  Extra shelf space in the office for pictures of grandchildren or pets or golfing trophies. Think of the time and resources saved in not printing, collating and binding. Somebody new needs the information, just send'm a link.

If the information is important enough to gather, organize and update, isn't is also important enough to make available, uniform and current by placing it online?

This, like so many technology changes, is less about technology and more about mindsets. Based on binder use, I don't think I will be retiring any time soon.

*Yes, there are commerical programs like Livebinders available. 

Comments

[Billie Esser]

Hi Doug,

I can appreciate your post on the amount of paper that is wasted; being in the library I have seen my students kill too many trees! I am curious to know how you feel about a recent article in Scientific American that indicates students performed better, retained more, when reading from print rather than online? What was once thought a generation issue is really a "brain" issue. Here is a link to the article http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post/online-v-print-reading-which-one-ma-2008-12-23/ My school went 1:1 last year and while some students prefer reading, organizing,etc on their iPad, I have a 25-30% group of students who do not prefer it at all. Would like to hear your thoughts!

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Billie,

I remember that study - and it's now 5 years old.

The conditions that lead to less reading engagement, I thought, seemed temporary to me:

physical manipulation of the computer that it interferes with our ability to focus on and appreciate what we're reading; online text moves up and down the screen and lacks physical dimension, robbing us of a feeling of completeness; andmultimedia features, such as links to videos and animations, leave little room for imagination, limiting our ability to form our own mental pictures to illustrate what we're reading.

I couldn't help but wonder if people who switched from scrolls to folios felt the same way! To me the links to videos and animation (along with the ability to have the book read aloud, pronounce and define words, etc. seem positive for many readers as well.

Reading will continue to move to digital, have no doubt. Seems like the people who adjust to that reality now rather than fight or deny it will be better prepared.

An avid Kindle reader,

Doug