Over 800 Teachers Pledge to Go Paperless for Earth Day!

Over 800 teachers from around the world have now signed our pledge to go paperless in their classrooms for Earth Day 2010. Can you commit to going paperless for a day?

Click here to add your name and pledge!

And click here to see everybody who's pledged so far!

Update on the Paperless Earth Day Campaign

Over 700 teachers have signed the pledge to go paperless for Earth Day!

Thank you to so many of the subscribers to this blog as well as all the great educators on Twitter for helping out and spreading the word.

Let's keep this ball rolling! Earth Day is April 22.

Pledge now!

Nearly 600 Teachers Have Taken the Paperless Earth Day Pledge

Click here to see the current list (organized alphabetically by school name).

And click here to pledge.

Update on Teachers Pledging to Go Paperless for Earth Day

From Vietnam to British Columbia. From Serbia to Honduras. Teachers are pledging to go paperless for Earth Day 2010!

At last count, we had about 360 teachers from around the world pledged.

Here is the original call from a week ago. Here is the form through which you can pledge to go paperless. And here is the Doc listing all of the teachers who have pledged.

Thank you to all of the teachers involved so far. Steve and I are thinking of ways that we can all share what we do in our classes on April 22. It would be great to have a site that could serve as documentation of the event worldwide. If you would like to get involved in helping to create that sort of thing, let me know.

Over 100 Teachers Pledge to Go Paperless for Earth Day

You folks are amazing!

We now have over 100 teachers who have taken the pledge to go Paperless for Earth Day (April 22)!

Read the original explanation of what we're doing and why we're doing it, then surf over to our Google Doc and pledge to go paperless!

Thanks!

Paperless Classroom Earth Day Pledge 2010

As of last check, over 50 teachers had signed the pledge to go paperless for Earth Day!

Here's a link to the post explaining what we're doing and here's a link to the pledge itself.

Note that we're organizing the list in alphabetical order by school. That gives us the chance to easily see which schools have the highest participation!

Thanks to everybody who's signed up so far. And please continue to spread the word in your schools and on Twitter.

The Opportunity Presented by a Bare Room

Walked into my classroom for the first time today and got quite a shock: nothing was there.

I mean NOTHING.

The crew is stripping and re-waxing the floors, so they cleaned out the rooms. Now, I knew they did this sort of thing in many of the regular classrooms where there are just desks and chairs, but my room is a little bit different. Basically it's a huge TV studio full of electronics, a row of Macs, a green screen, pro lighting, a sofa, and all my junk. So, it was a little weird to see it bare.

But it started giving both me and the teacher I share the space with many ideas about how to refurnish.

Plan is to go in tomorrow and build the room anew based on our best idea of what a paperless classroom should look like and what a paperless classroom should feel like. First thing we are doing is marking up the floor in a series of taped arcs that will work to guide students for seating arrangements which will be modular and change according to the style and purpose of the lesson. Second thing will be to hang up my second projection screen and make it permanent (that's the screen I've had on a stand that I run our live Twitter feed on).

I'd love to hear ideas from the TeachPaperless community. If you had a big empty room, (and I mean big... like twice the size of a standard high school classroom), how would you furnish it? I've got two LCD projectors, six iMacs, an audio control room, directional lighting, and a few rolls of duct tape.

Let's hear what the 21st century classroom should look like.

Happy New Year!

Spent an hour Monday helping a colleague who's trying to go paperless this year.

Poor guy didn't even have a Google ID, but by the end of the hour he was set up with a new email account, his own blog, an RSS calendar, and a Twitter feed. We talked through several of the things I've posted here on TeachPaperless over the last several months and it was really exciting to see someone -- especially someone I know personally as a teacher and have a lot of personal respect for -- really 'get it' as goes this ed tech thing. There was a spark there. It was practically visible.

It was that same sort of thing as when a student suddenly realizes how to solve a problem.

A spark.

And that spark is contagious.

I, for one, am excited about getting back into the classroom in a week. That's where the action happens. That's where we find out whether this paperless classroom and social tech in ed thing actually pays dividends. Whether it produces sparks.

Incidentally, this last year was the first year that I taught AP Art History entirely paperlessly. Used Wikipedia, the Met Museum Timeline of Art History, Twitter, and my own brain in lieu of a textbook or lecture notes. Rather than have kids take slide-ID tests, I let them blog and I graded their blogs as full credit assessments.

In that class I put in to practice all of the things that I've talked about over these nearly 500 posts.

And it was a special experience, because unlike my Latin classes where I basically teach the kids for four straight years, Art History is a one shot deal. What I'm getting at is that unlike my AP Vergil Seniors who had had the experience of working in a relatively traditional classroom for a year or two before I went totally paperless, this AP Art History class was the first high-level (and high-stress) class that I taught entirely paperlessly to students who had no exposure to any other method of learning Art History.

And they wound up earning by far the best grades on that silly ole AP exam of any students I've taught.

Now I'm not one to really care very much for grades; and I let my students know this on a regular basis. I could care less whether they get an 'A' or a 'D' in my class; what I want them to understand is that they are really the only ones who really know if they 'get it' and that 'getting it' is far more respectable than the letters on any term report.

Nonetheless, it's a nice beginning of the year boost to see those grades come back as they did; because what that says to me is that -- purely in terms of those numbers -- there is no way anybody can ever again argue to me that students 'do better' by the old traditional methods. In my eyes, that argument was proven invalid by the very grades that many of the holders of that opinion value so much.

Every teacher knows that New Year's Day occurs in August (or September depending on certain locales... but you catch my drift). So, Happy New Year's, here's to your health, for 'Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?'

Math, meet Spanish; Spanish, meet Math...

A reader picks up on the recent math conversation with an interesting comment:

Just as math and science teachers need to incorporate the arts in their instruction, those of us in the humanities must support math and science learning. For example, do creative writing and word problems need to be mutually exclusive? (Maybe students would be more engaged with word problems that are personalized and not about two trains!) Another expample: my Spanish students learn numbers in my class but will do so by practicing greater than/less than and negative numbers, skills a math colleague said many lack.

Maybe part of the trick in using elements of Web 2.0 in the math classroom is to approach it from the cross-curricular perspective.

Architecture is the perfect example of a field that effortlessly blends art, history, and math. I'm sure you all can come up with many others.

I love the idea of using a foreign language to teach math. Back in college, my elementary Greek teacher was also my first statistics teacher. He approached teaching math as if he were teaching a foreign language.

Today, a math teacher using this approach could easily incorporate much of the paperless procedures and tech integrated pedagogies that foreign language teachers are already using.

Again, this isn't really about saving scratch paper in math class. It's about finding ways to make math class just as connected to digital technology and social media as the best tech integrated English class.

Keep coming with the ideas and comments, folks. This is quickly turning into Math Week at TeachPaperless!

Does Arne Get It?

Digital Education reports on a new report released by US Dept of Ed which suggests that 'blended learning' is more effective than strictly face-to-face or strictly online learning.

Despite the fact that, as Dig Ed notes, little to none of the research looked specifically at K-12 learning, I'm willing to barter that the gist of it is right. 'Blended' or 'Hybrid' learning merging digital and f2f has been my go-to for the last two years and I couldn't imagine running a successful paperless classroom any other way.

But that's not the end of the story.

Because also in the article hangs a bit of low-lying fruit in the form of a response to the report by Arne Duncan:

“This new report reinforces that effective teachers need to incorporate digital content into everyday classes and consider open-source learning management systems, which have proven cost effective in school districts and colleges nationwide.”

Problem is: it doesn't seem like the Secretary of Education has any clue what he's talking about.

Teachers don't need to incorporate 'digital content' into anything. You don't teach 'digital content' in a paperless English class; you teach 'English language and literature content' via digital alternatives to paper. You don't teach 'digital content' in a paperless art history class; you teach the content of art history via digital means.

Via the integration of technology, students learn vital networking, communication, and participatory media skills; but this isn't the content of the course.

If anything, in a fully integrated Web 2.0 classroom, it is the students who are creating 'digital content'.

Furthermore, 'open-source' learning doesn't require any management system. You don't need to spend any money on a management system. Nor do you need to spend any money on textbooks. Rather, just spend your money on smart teachers who are savvy enough to know how to put together the content of an authentic course by compiling open-source materials, creating engaged and vigorous lesson plans, and integrating a sophisticated use of social media tools.

Get it?

[Add 6:40PM - My original title for this post was 'Is Arne Duncan a Luddite?' but I decided to pull that. Because Arne obviously is not a Luddite. It's not that he doesn't like or dislike technology. It's that he doesn't understand what's going on. He just doesn't get it. -- Shelly]

Summer Assignment for Teachers

Here's a list of 5 things you can do over the summer to prepare your paperless classroom for the new school year.

1. Start a blog. It doesn't matter who you are or what you do. You have something to say. So say it. Say more of it everyday. A blog is the hub around which a paperless classroom rotates. The more comfortable you are at blogging and reading blogs, the more comfortable you will be teaching in a paperless classroom.

2. Start a Diigo account. I've been following the Diigo-ing and Diigo-speak of many folks and finally decided to take the plunge myself. I plan on spending all summer learning everything I can about how to use social bookmarking. And in the fall, I am going to make it a mandatory practice for students in my classes.

3. Tweet, Tweet, Tweet. Forget what everybody has told you about Twitter. Forget everything you've read about it. Hype is hype is hype. Just sign up, follow some ed techies, and enter a new world. It will prove to be a Professional Development experience unlike any other. You will kick yourself for not having signed up earlier.

4. Follow the debates concerning traditional media and social media. As regular readers know, this is something which has very much been on my mind lately. My current thinking is this: the #IranElection feed changed everything. It didn't 'replace' mainstream media, rather it forced a critical eye onto the inherent problems within it. And -- most importantly -- in a way that took popular imagination by storm. Are professional journalists necessary? Absolutely. But are the top-down corporate organizations which provide them with jobs singularly necessary? That's the question that's up in the air. That's a question they are asking in Seattle. And in Boston. And in Chicago. And in Baltimore. What's the future of media? Well, I think the type of synergy we've seen in the last eight days between professional savvy and amateur ingenuity marks the way forward. Because the best thing that that synergy can create is a more engaged citizenry; and the more engaged the citizenry, the higher the quality of the output of social media. We have the opportunity here to organize and educate a more sophisticated and engaged society.

5. Prepare your talking points. There are two major obstacles to starting any paperless movement: blocking and access. The events of the last days, as well as the plethora of examples of Twitter in the classroom that have been popping up across the blogosphere, should aid in bolstering your arguments against the former. As for the latter, it is our duty as educators and citizens to advocate for free universal Wi-Fi and universal mobile hardware in all of our schools and public libraries. Movements in major cities such as Philadelphia and Minneapolis have demonstrated that universal Wi-Fi does not have to be a dream. The dropping of the prices of Netbooks and Smart Phones below the cost of textbooks has mooted the cost argument; now it's just a matter of the allocation of resources and the educating of teachers in how to best use this stuff.

Have a fun, safe, and productive summer. There's plenty to learn between now and the new school year.

Paperless Classrooms Becoming a Reality

TeachPaperless quoted today in The Guardian in an article about paperless classrooms becoming reality.

Reminder: Today's Friday Chat about Digital Plagiarism

Today, Friday June 5th at 1PM EST:
The Friday Chat will be on the topic of Digital Plagiarism

A topic dear to the heart of any classroom teacher: plagiarism -- and methods of both discovery and prevention -- has become a fresh challenge in the Digital Age. Join us for informal discussion on June 5th.

June 5th at 1PM EST
http://todaysmeet.com/TeachPaperless

Example Paperless Assignments: Students Build a Resource Wiki

A few teachers have asked for more examples of paperless assignments. Here is a collaborative take-home test I just gave my Latin II class. They've got 33 hours to complete the task as a group and they will not have class from now until it's due.

Prep-wise, we spent yesterday's class discussing and evaluating online sources.

Content-wise, they have created an online resource bibliography on the Gallic Wars and now they are responsible for using that bibliography to create their own wiki entry on the History of the Gallic Wars. They will be allowed to use this wiki as an aid in answering the open-ended essay question which will comprise 1/5 of their final exam grade.

Tech-wise, they have used Twitter hash-tags to build a communal online bibliography searchable through Twitter Search. They [will] have built and edited a wiki and will have teleconferenced via Skype or some other IM/text-means.

What will they learn? Hopefully they've learned to distinguish good from poor sources, how to work collaboratively using Web 2.0 technology, and how to construct a quality and exhaustive encyclopedia entry. I think the key is that they will be using this wiki as support on the final exam; it's not really just an 'end-product' in and of itself, but rather it's the 'tool' or 'resource' that they'll be allowed to use to give background info and examples in building their thesis on the open-ended question.

You are creating a collaborative wiki on the topic: History of the Gallic Wars.

1. Use Twitter Search to find the hash-tagged links you made today for the class bibliography. Those links form your source material.

2. Choose a class leader. The class leader will be responsible for creating the wiki.

3. Using Skype, Twitter, or just the old-fashioned cellphone, you are responsible as a class for completing the wiki by midnight tomorrow. (We don't have class tomorrow, so you are responsible for figuring out a way to do this).

4. I will be reviewing the edit history of the wiki. If you don't work on the wiki, you will not get any credit for the project. So don't think that someone else is just going to manage to get it done and you'll receive the group grade. No dice. You are responsible for earning your grade.

5. I will be grading for content and style. Please cover the period from Caesar's arrival in Gaul to his crossing the Rubicon at the beginning of the Civil Wars. The wiki should be written in proper academic style; watch to see that the tone is consistent. Review the entry in Wikipedia as a model -- for both good and bad.

6. Do not cut and paste from elsewhere. And do not rely wholly on Wikipedia. Though it is a strong source of encyclopedic material, I actually have a few problems with the entries related to the Gallic Wars -- can you figure out what they are?

7. You will be allowed to access your wiki on the Final Exam. So, be sure it is accurate and of the highest quality. Anything less would amount to jeopardizing your grade on the essay portion of the final.

8. Good luck. I trust you will figure out how to do this. I am always a fan of creative solutions.

This will be a double weighted group test grade.

Paperless Students on Digital Nation

Short video mostly of a couple of my students talking about their feelings about being in a paperless classroom: now viewable on PBS's Digital Nation site. Look for the black and gold circle.
My favorite part of the video:

Me: So do you think if someone came into this room they'd think there was teaching and learning going on?

First Student: Um... no...

Second Student: It's more of a conversation.

I Was a Paper Junkie

I was a paper junkie.

My first year teaching, I was so scared of speeding through a lesson and not having something for the students to do that I used to run off several copies of "fun" assignments each day (crosswords, games, whatever I could scrounge up each morning from the old file cabinet in the closet I'd inherited as an office). This inevitably added up to two or three sheets of paper per student per day. And this would be stuff I'd never even see again once I'd handed it out. I'm not even counting the handouts I'd work up for the day's lesson.

But, I was a paper junkie.

That first year teaching, we had a copy limit of somewhere between 10 and 15 thousand copies per teacher. I think I maxed out in January.

Like I said: I was a paper junkie.

I used to pride myself on the physical weight of my mid-term and final exams. Students in my Latin classes used to complain about their hands cramping up and I'd boast about the 22 page final exam I'd written in Greek History class back in college.

I was unrepentant.

When I came to my present school, I found three copy machines whereas my previous school only had two for almost twice as large a faculty. I was in heaven.

I once made a copy of a seventeen page annotated version of T.S. Eliot's 'The Wasteland' for each student in all five sections of the American Lit class I was teaching at the time. (I hope the statute of limitations is over for that one...).

But I think the most egregious use of paper came when I used to run off fresh copies of everyone's poems in Poetry Club so that we could all mark 'em up during workshops. I easily made a half-dozen copies of each poem per each one student in that club. In other words, each student would wind up with six copies of the exact same poem. And we used to read lots of poems.

But I was a paper junkie.

I used to print out copies of ebooks. (I remember that at that first school, I'd been given a curriculum guide on CD and I actually decided to print the whole thing).

I used to print out my grades in triplicate.

I used to forget to fill the toner cartridge in my desktop printer and have to go back and reprint dozens of copies of a twelve-page test.

I even got a special card from the office supply store to make copies in bulk.

And then I woke up.

I think it was the year our school moved to 1:1 computing. No one in administration suggested not using paper (in fact, I don't think any of them had even heard the term 'blog' at that point). None one on the facilities staff said anything (and they were the guys who hauled in those ton-sized pallets stacked with reams). I think it was really just a matter of me sitting down and playing around with this new laptop and before long realizing that I'd written hundreds of pages worth of notes and ideas and meeting minutes and lesson plans and hadn't printed a single piece of paper.

And why hadn't I printed anything from my new laptop?

Because I couldn't figure out how to.

That's how this whole foray into paperlessness began. It wasn't that I was some tech wizard. I certainly wasn't all that environmentally conscious. I barely used the Internet with the exception of reading bulletin boards and getting my morning news.

Rather, the reason I got into paperlessness was because I was too dumb to figure out how to hook a printer up to my new laptop and too stubborn to ask the IT department to do it for me.

I totally slacked my way into paperlessness.

It was only once I was there that I realized what had happened. And then the epiphany came: "Hey buddy," my mind said to me, "you don't really need paper to teach a class".

And so, I didn't go back. And over the last three years, I've been on a crazy journey where I've easily saved over 40,000 sheets of paper. And that doesn't even count the paper my kids have saved in my class. Whereas I used to like to brag that kids would burn through two notebooks over the course of my AP Latin class, now not a single notebook ever needs be opened.

Just for fun today, I cut-and-pasted the contents of a single student blog into Word. This was a blog that a student in my Latin II class has kept this year. So we're talking from September to April. When that blog popped up in 12pt font as a Word document, it turned out to be 107 pages long.

107 pages.

Written by a 15 year old.

In one class.

If nothing else, my experience with a paperless classroom has proven to me demonstrably that there is just so much waste that we take for granted in education. And it's an ongoing eyeopening experience for me to see just how much a change a little change can make.

The old me never understood that. But he was a paper junkie.

Going Paperless!

Teachers are trying out the paperless path!

Just got a Tweet from @concretekax:

Used 5.34 pieces of paper/student for 9 week class mostly graph paper and my principle required a parent letter.

That's a good start.

It takes time to do the paperless thing... it's not just a matter of 'giving it up'. I staged it over three years: first year doing research, learning how to blog, and reading and writing blogs constantly; second year a) setting up class blogs and giving all of my assignments and exams exclusively online and b) getting kids used to using online texts as their 'main text'; third year a) setting up the students with their own personal blogs as a place to submit all classwork b) teaching students to use and evaluate the effectiveness of Web 2.0; next year will mark my first year with zero physical books -- all readings/books will be online.

I have the good fortune of having my Latin students for at least three years, which gives us a real opportunity to figure out what works and what doesn't. In fact, they help make all of our decisions about what tech to use.

It's a process.

Glad to hear of teachers trying it out. Would love to hear more stories.

Google Apps, "Real-World" Paperlessness, and the Paperless Classroom

Here's a video posted by Google almost exactly a year ago on YouTube. It's an introduction to Google Apps for Education and seems to have been made for education admins.

Its amazing how much happens in a year.

I started experimenting with Google Docs around the time this video came out. And it didn't start in school. Rather, I'm on the board of an organization in Baltimore that runs a weekly performance series and produces a big annual music concert. I started working with them about a year and a half ago. Well, the first thing that struck me about the board meetings was that they were conducted entirely paperless. In fact, the only paper we ever use is for making posters. All meeting minutes are done via Google Docs, all submissions are handled electronically, the majority of promotion occurs via social networking, and it is expected that you show up at each meeting with a laptop to connect to the Wi-Fi.

This "real-world" example of paperlessness made a big impression on me and just fueled my conviction to go totally paperless in the classroom. Google Apps have been a big part of my success, so it's interesting to see just how prescient this admittedly rather boring video of a year ago was -- at least in my case.

I do have a conviction to help other teachers go paperless. It's a great way to save resources, make use of the dynamic and creative potential of Web 2.0, and really connect with the students in a way that reflects the world's evolution into the Digital Age. As I approach 200 posts on this blog, I just want to thank all of the folks who have joined in this discussion and I look forward to a year from now looking back on how far we will have come.

Taking the 'Paperless Challenge'

A reader writes:

I'll take you up on that challenge. I have 5 computers in my room and 32 students at one time. I will find a way to make this paperless thing work. Thanks for the push.

Excellent. That's a tough ratio of students to computers, but you can make this work. When I started my digital audio class, I didn't yet have enough computers (despite the fact that we're a 1:1 PC school, all the audio software ran on Macs exclusively and in the beginning we really only had four machines that could manage the programs); but with some tinkering on the new frontiers in student social arrangements, I managed to work it.

Try turning your room into a lab with computers assigned specific functions. Have two computers dedicated for research, two for blogging, and one for uploading pics/multimedia/etc.

I don't know what kind of class you are teaching, but for your first foray into paperless teaching, I'd choose a project comprised of formative independent or paired student blogs and a summative whole-class wiki comprised of the work done on the blogs. Say you grouped them into eight groups of four. That gives you five groups on machines while you've got small group discussion going on with the other students.

So say you were an English teacher doing a unit on Romeo and Juliet. Your essential question might be: What is the nature of Tragedy?

Of your five computer groups, two would be doing research finding examples/definitions of Tragedy as well as associated multimedia on Romeo and Juliet (might be instructive to compare the ballet with the Zef film with the Baz film). They'd upload their findings onto a communal Google Doc. The next group is organizing that work into nice multi-media formats in addition to collecting pics from student cells (see below in just a second). The other two computer groups are synthesizing the information as they understand it by answering a series of associated questions directly into their individual or pair blogs. The rest of the class (three groups) are engaged in small group discussion with the teacher.

I'd rotate positions on the computers every half-hour and switch back and forth between computer groups and small discussion groups every other session.

You will find that students quickly become independent users, particularly of Web 2.0 tools. So, try to give them as much space as you can to work on their own. Cellphones are to your advantage, as well. Students can shoot photos and post to online albums for later drops into their blogs; and they can easily Tweet together a hyperlinked digital bibliography or a reading summary via a cellphone linked to Twitter.

The result: individualized formative assessments answering the essential question and associated questions that come up through small group discussion are posted on the blogs. The blogs are then combined and edited into a summative assessment in the form of a multimedia class wiki. You'll be able to cross-check each student's individual contribution to the class wiki by reviewing the doc's revision history which is automatically saved.

Things you absolutely must plan before attempting this sort of thing: all students need to be set up with a personal blog, all students must be accepted as authors on the same class wiki, and all students need to know, of course, exactly what's expected of them.

And remember, 'paperless' does not mean 'all computer all the time'. Socrates was paperless.

And be flexible. Spontaneous. You might find that less students on computers and more in discussion works better. You are the only one who really knows the dynamic in your classroom.

See what happens to the level of discussion in class and let me know what works and what doesn't. Be fearless. Good luck.

Advice from an Ex-Smoker

Several folks have commented recently about how good paper makes them feel.

reader:

I think that alot of things that are done on paper can be changed to being completed on the computer or a similar tool. However, I don't think I would like if everything became paperless! It just wouldn't feel the same!

reader:

I don't agree with getting rid of paper completely in classrooms. I just don't see the point. I agree that it might be easier to share and organize your work through googledocs and email, but the feelings of writing a document, printing it out, stapling it, and handing it in making sure there are no creases or tears on your paper are satisfying to many.

To the best of my recollection, I started smoking cigarettes back in Junior year of high school. I was 16 years old.

I fell in love with tobacco immediately. While a lot of smokers say that their first cigarettes gave them a light-headed or nauseating feeling, for me it was pure heaven. And at $1.09 a pack, it was exactly what I'd been looking for.

For the next seven years, friends rarely saw me without a smoke in hand. Smoking was the first thing I did when I woke up and it was the last thing I did before crashing for the night. I was playing in bands and working in bars at the time, so there was no problem smoking all through the day. Before long, I had a two-pack-a-day habit. On late nights, I could easily blow through three packs. Friends and I would often laugh about how impossible it would be to live without cigarettes.

Sometime around 1997 or 98, I caught a serious case of bronchitis. It was enough to put me in bed for two or three days. And that marked the first time since I'd gotten hooked that I'd been off nicotine. Four days into a withdrawl involving coughing up pieces of bloody tar, I made a decision: I was going cold turkey.

And so overnight I went from seven years of two-packs-a-day to nothing. And the first week was hellish.

But by the second week I was noticing something. First of all, I found myself with a lot of free time on my hands. Rather than stopping for a smoke break, I could actually get through whatever task I set my mind to. I felt like I was gaining time in the day. Second, I started getting mad. Not at anyone else, but rather I was mad at myself for wasting so much money and time having done something for so long just because I couldn't see myself feeling comfortable otherwise.

And that's the way I feel about paper.

If we take the long view, we see that this sort of thing has happened over and over through the centuries. I'm sure folks who grew up reading on papyrus said there was no way they'd ever read on goat-skin. And folks who grew up reading and writing on animal skin manuscripts likely said the same thing about writing on the pulp of mashed-up trees. It just wouldn't 'feel' right. It wouldn't be satisfying. It wouldn't be comfortable.

But 'comfort' is often a by-product of stasis. And this is coming from a former smoker who spent more than his fair share of time just standing around scared of what life might be like without the squares. I'm too smoke-wise to tell you to quit anything, but what I will tell you is that it's actually a lot easier on the other side, it feels good, and it's ridiculously satisfying.

So go cold turkey. For just a week or two. No paper. If you've got computers use them. And if you don't, then take the time to talk with your students. Give oral assessments. Or take some time to do that project you've always dreamed about. But just stay off paper for a week or two and see how it makes you feel.