Locker clean-out day. Whoa! Anybody who has ever set foot in a school during locker clean-out day at the end of the school year probably experienced more than mild disgust. I know I did every year watching the barely recognizable contents emerge from the depths of the lockers...sometimes seemingly on their own volition. Stained paper bags, crumpled projects, forgotten gym socks, beaten up agendas, and the quantity of paper positively stunned me. I always did get a chuckle out of the "Eureka!" moments when I would hear a student exclaim, "Oh THERE is my curling iron!" or "Hey, Mrs. Lennon, I know this was due in October, but here it is!" It seemed, however, that every student was disposing of a full-sized three-ring binder overstuffed with paper for each subject. That's a mind-blowing amount of trees!
Locker clean-out day was also followed up a few days later by my own classroom clean-out. It seems this pot was calling the kettles black! Aside from the twenty-pound curriculum notebook for each prep, I also housed over 150 student portfolios for my Spanish students, had two overflowing file cabinets with extra copies of worksheets, and boxes (made of paper, of course) of scan-trons and assignments I had to keep for documentation purposes. I would then haul all of this paper to one of the storage rooms, which were already filled with- you guessed it- boxes of paper.
I was introduced to My Big Campus a few years ago and immediately my students and I gravitated toward this on-line learning management system. We used it to give students 24/7 access to resources, hold discussions outside of regular class hours, and collaboratively interact with class content. Almost simultaneously, I was asked to attend a technology conference and selected a session about blended learning. The presenter addressed many applicable points to my own classroom, but the one I latched onto the most personally was a quick statement or two he gave regarding the environmental impact of using on-line teaching tools. My mind raced thinking of ways I could actively pursue this initiative in my own classroom. These were my immediate applications:
1- Use of the Calendar. I had already grown fond of being able to post reminders, assignments, and relevant resources to my students on the Group Calendars, but I decided to take this a step further- and we ditched the paper agendas. I asked students how they remembered important events (not "important" like "Spanish quiz"- but "IMPORTANT to a 16 year old" like "me and my boyfriend's six-week anniversary"). Overwhelmingly, they used their phones or another electronic calendar, not a paper calendar. I showed them how to export our Group Calendar to their phones- plus there was always the Group Calendar to refer to on My Big Campus. We never used those bulky agendas again!
2- On-line assignments. Before I made an assignment due in a hand-written format, I always assessed my motivation. Why did they have to write it? Was there a way to transfer this to an electronic assignment? With modest exceptions, we could create, turn in, evaluate, revise, and operate almost entirely electronically. With Wiki-like Pages, Bundles, and MBC Docs, students didn't have to use loose-leaf paper (which by December, I was providing for them anyhow since they all ran out!). Not only were we saving paper, but the accountability and documentation were all housed electronically both on my end and on theirs- without boxes! The ease of grading for me was another Going-Green perk in that I didn't have to lug papers to and from school. I didn't have to make extra copies for students that lost a resource- it was all available on My Big Campus. I also benefitted from a richer method of evaluation in that now students could add pictures, audio, video, and presentations to their assignments so I was getting a more robust sense of their understanding of material than I could with simply paper and pen activities. Research papers with multiple drafts no longer cost the environment reams of paper (not to even mention the ink cartridges) only to show up in the "locker clean-out landfill." We simply didn't need the paper copies.
3- On-line assessments. This was a biggie! First off- if I gave multiple-choice, multiple-select, true/false, or fill-in-the-blank, MBC graded it for me! That alone freed up more than just a few hours of time for me each evening! More than that, it gave students immediate feedback and gave me immediate reports of student progress. Since these assessments were visible by both the students and me, the documentation and progress was available without having thousands of scan-tron sheets filed away!
4- E-portfolios. Aside from saving the environment, creating e-portfolios versus paper-portfolios also saved me more than a few trips to the chiropractor. Storing and lugging around over 150 binders each year had finally come to a sweet end! Not only did we save thousands of pieces of paper (understand that most students would actually create two paper- portfolios just to have a back-up), but we could share them asynchronously, have multiple copies at no expense to the environment, and include a much broader picture of the student as he or she could include multiple file types to demonstrate understanding and mastery of content. This also saved no less than ten boxes for storage each year as well!
5- Lesson plans. No more curriculum binder! Through Bundles and Pages, teachers can have their lessons all in one place- including all of the resources they use to teach- without having a paper binder. Teachers can share these with students, parents, administration, and other teachers without using print-outs and copies. I also liked that any revisions could be simply "saved" instead of having to print out one more final copy.
It seems appropriate as we celebrate Earth Day this week to think about ways to make our schools more environmentally friendly in ways that impact not just one day, but the overall consumption. Need some more ideas of ways to go green? Check out this bundle for resources and a fun classroom project: Earth Day Bundle
We only have one beautiful Earth- with My Big Campus you can be a part of its protection and conservation!
