By Megan Hippeli

Imagine instead of the occasional squeak of a pencil on paper or the annoying churning of a pencil sharpener, the room was filled with the furious typing of students taking notes from the lecture in the class room. No more binders, notebooks or worksheets; laptops and PDA’s have taken over the classroom.

The benefits of schools going paperless overwhelmingly outweigh the cons. Going paperless will best benefit the students by making their day more convenient, as well as making them more productive, and it will be environmentally friendly at the same time. Without having to sort through their folders and binders for a single piece of paper, all assignments will be in their designated folder. Students and teachers will have a new sense of organization, enabling all their classes and notes to be in a specific place rather than crumpled in the bottom of a backpack. The student will also be able to be access their work from anywhere, whenever the student needs it, no longer being inconvenienced by forgetting a single folder at home or by leaving an assignment on the printer tray. Teachers will be able to forward handouts, reminders, grades, and have easier communication with the students than we do now.

Going paperless would benefit schools in a substantial way with money savings. Teachers give out at least two to three handouts a day, which adds up throughout the week, Mrs. Stoker agreed averaging the number of handouts she gives out a week is three per class, even after she has started to cut down on the amount of handouts she passed out in efforts to go paperless. Stoker has five classes a day and giving out sheets to every filled classroom she has adds up to about 300 sheets a week. Imagine the impact it would have on the school if all the teachers, who are also handing out that amount or more per week, go paperless. Giving the teachers the availability to email the handouts will save on paper, ink, and clutter. PDA’s and laptops also have direct access to books and online databases, lessening the need for books in the library. Eliminating the purchase of books, paper, and toner for the printers, the school will save an effective amount. If every student had their own PDA or laptop, the school would not need to spend money on multiple computer labs, saving on the possible maintenance bills as well.

Without the use of paper, the school will reduce its environmental footprint. There will no longer be wasted paper throughout the school year by teachers and students discarding of handouts no longer of use to them. Schools reducing the waste of paper will work to help save trees and the environmental crisis that is currently happening. This will also reduce the hazardous waste from schools without the need of ink or toner for printers. In addition, the school will be able to reduce its carbon footprint by eliminating the delivery process of the paper.

Although the opposition will argue that going paperless will negatively affect the students learning by giving them an opportunity to slack off in class without the teacher noticing; the students will not be able to access any unnecessary sites when they join the school’s network. If students slack off and do not do as they are supposed to during class, the only person it will hurt is them, just as it would if the students were taking notes in the classroom with pencil and paper.

Going paperless will benefit the school by reducing their environmental and carbon footprints, which will help raise awareness in the environmentally conscious world. It will also help the school by saving thousands of dollars on paper, ink, toner, books, and filling computer labs with computers. Students will benefit from going paperless by being able to have more organization, and being able to access all of their assignments wherever and whenever they need. By going paperless, the school, teachers, students, and community are saving money, time, and the environment, leaving the benefits to heavily outweigh the cons.