Is 250 sheets of paper a year enough?

After some data gathering last year, we realized we were using a case of paper every 2 weeks in one computer lab (we have 4 in our school). That is 5000 sheets of paper every 2 weeks, or 500 sheets of paper per day in ONE LAB.  My informal observation was kids would print out a webpage (10 or 15 sheets) and call that “doing research”. Blech.

We instituted much stricter print quotas this year - each student only has 250 sheet for the entire year. Now as we enter into our second semester, we are starting to get visitors into the IT office asking for an increase. We oblige them, but ask them to be careful about their printing needs.

I’m honestly surprised. Many of our teachers accept emailed assignments, and many students use turnitin for papers.

I’m keeping a careful watch on our heaviest users, and targeting those teachers with professional development for electronically submitted assignments.

On 24 February 2010, Terry inscribed the following thoughts about this post:

I am a 4-12 Music and Computer teacher. When students are doing “research” they are allowed one page of printing per day/per group. Kids need to learn to cut and paste into a Word document ONLY the most important information. This is a skill that is both beneficial to the students (paring down the massive amount of information) and the school/earth. However, this is something that has to be taught!

We are teachers and it seems sometimes the last way we fix a problem is through teaching! Since I implemented this strategy about five years ago, the paper usage is WAY down and it hasn’t hurt the final products. Learning is good!

On 24 February 2010, Bill inscribed the following thoughts about this post:

Hey Terry! Nice to meet you!

I think your approach is ideal; I think when we limited paper usage, we hoped for this result. We asked kids to only print what was necessary, but they took the easy road, and just printed.

Thanks for the comment!