Paperless Schools and Linux Notebooks for Every Kid

by Sam Dean - Jun. 27, 2008Comments (7)

I was very interested in this piece from Computerworld U.K., titled "Can we give every school child in the U.K. a Linux notebook and still save money?" It provides a cost breakdown of what it would take to give every student a Linux notebook, compared to the costs schools in the U.K. currently face for software licenses, other technology fees, and printing and photocopying. According to the author of this story, the fees for printing and photocopying alone at schools are staggering--to the point where if electronic materials replaced much of the printed materials, there would be enough money to give each student a low-cost Linux notebook. Would this work in the U.S.?

According to the Computerworld U.K. piece, at a typical secondary school in England the number of paper sheets passing through faxes, photocopiers and printers comes to 4,450,000 per year. In the school that the author focused on, this came out to 8,000 copies per child, per year.

If this seems ridiculously overstated, I happen to have two kids in school, one entering high school and one in 5th grade. They are in school at least 200 days a year. On an average day, they bring home about 20 sheets of printed materials in their overstuffed backpacks. This already comes out to 4,000 sheets for each kid, per year, and that's just what they bring home. There are more printed materials in their classrooms each day, and many more generated from the central operations of their schools.

I would say that the Computerworld figure of 8,000 sheets per student, per year, might be a bit high for a U.S. student, but not outrageously so. Anyway, if you go through the whole calculation in the Computerwold post, the costs for paper, toner and all the rest of the expensive items needed for paper-driven schools vastly eclipse what it would cost to buy each student a Linux notebook computer. (Asus Linux notebooks are very popular now, come loaded with open source applications and no software licensing fees, and can be had for under $350.)

If a U.S. school could actually go largely paperless, and distribute its materials electronically, I don't doubt that each kid could have a Linux notebook, and the school would end up saving money. That said, though, the fact that the Pied Pipers of the paperless office never proved right is instructive here. Kids are very used to the interface and usability metaphors of working with paper, and in their early school years they have to work with a lot of paper to develop handwriting skills, etc. In all likelihood, it would be undoable to go largely paperless. Some ideas look better on paper than they do in reality. 

 


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7 Comments
 

I was wondering the same thing. I taught for 38 years, recently retired. Teachers and the school still churn out reams of paper to the extent where the school is beginning to feel the pinch of paying for the paper.

Before the advent of copiers, computers and laser printers, printing was a hassle - typing the stencil, loading the paper and refilling the ink or alcohol.

Today, with near-instant output, copying and pasting, the output of paper in schools borders on insanity. What amazes me is that some teachers can teach about environmental protection and conservation while distributing reams of notes and worksheets to students without batting an eyelid.

In one case, a teacher just took parts out of the textbook word-for-word and reprinted them onto several pages and gave these to the students as study notes before an examination.

Teachers also insist that the students print out their work and compile all of these into a study progress file that is 2 to 3 inches thick by the end of the school year. These are inspected once and after the exam, they become waste material as the students in the following year have to start all over again.

Some students and parents have complained about the exorbitant sums of money collected by a teacher for the notes and worksheets that he distributes.

Despite the increase in the use of energy by these notebooks and networking infrastructure in schools, in the long run, the savings in the use of energy from the chopping, milling of wood, paper production, transport, packaging and distribution will result in a huge reduction not only of energy but also waste and greenhouse gases.

Not only these, but much space will be saved in the storage of books, paper, files, records. Children will no longer have to lug backpacks that weigh almost as much as they do.

Notebooks can get lost or stolen, but books and notes often suffer the same fate, particularly just before an exam. Keeping backup notebooks in school and electronic data backup at home or elsewhere is easier than keeping copies of paper print. Digital data is easily reloaded. With the internet, data can be easily downloaded from home or even the school server when needed.

Books and paper are also limited in their ability for expansion and updating. Minor errors or revisions are made every year causing differences between older and newer editions.

Notebooks can provide animation, video and sound, which are particularly critical in the teaching and learning of language. As a teacher of English in Asia, I find students are particularly lacking when it comes to the spoken word - whether heard or from their own mouths. They spend and inordinately preposterous amount of their time keeping quiet and learning English with just their eyes, and hands holding pens.

I could go on and on. Of course, the use of notebooks and multimedia technology are not without their problems. Overall, however, the use of paper (and books) is much more limiting as well as wasteful and harmful to the environment.

A good book in the hand will always have its place in human culture. A classic or good novel is for always. Holding the book, turning its pages and even smelling the ink and paper can be pleasures that the notebook cannot, in its present stage of development, provide. Perhaps, in the future, they could develop the technology to simulate the book. But, even then, it's still not the real thing.

2 Votes

Or we could simply use paper. It seems to have worked in the past. You know way back when!

1. If you use paper than people that have trees have a reason to keep growing them. In many parts of the world your desire to save paper has meant the destruction of forests. Duh! Can't make money on your forest, maybe you can make money on your farm. 2. Strange but if you make paper, when you eventually destroy it, you can make energy. Can we say the word renewable. 3. If we used thousands more tons a year of wood on long term products like houses and bridges. Then we would be taking thousands of tons of carbon out of the atmosphere. If we needed to destroy the bridges and house we could make, RENEWABLE, energy out of the waste. 4. I loved paper bags, but some nuts irrationally thought that not using paper would save trees. They choose plastic bags which by the way are usually made out of a non-renewable product crude oil. Now the nuts want to get rid of my plastic bags. LEAVE US ALONE. Paper bags can be made out of many different renewable resources and while they exist take carbon out of the atmosphere.

1 Votes

Instead of coming up with alternate strategies to eliminate paper, the dept. of education should be looking at strategies to increase funding to the school system and focus on what's important - facilities, teachers, activities, security - linux notebooks aren't going to dramatically change the crumbling public education infrastructure in the US

1 Votes

This is a very interesting debate, one will very likely continue for a number of years. As orionds points out in the first comment above, the question "should schools go paperless" is rife with complexity. A question that concerns major industries (publishers, producers, distributers, paper and ink manufacturing, photocopy tech, on and on) which I would imagine amounts to literally billions of dollars per academic year. These things don't adapt quickly. There are many examples, modern society's dependancy on petroleum-based products for one.

The other HUGE factor to consider is the fact that such a change would require very significant change in human behavior which, like big money industries, moves very slowly even when faced with an obvious solution (orionds example about the photocopied sections of books by a teacher with concern about the environment is a perfect). It is my belief it won't be the industry or maybe even the fact that electronic dissemination of knowledge may be superior to text and imagery on paper that will change people's behavior. As much as I hate to admit it I think it will require governmental policy to literally push people into adoption. I wish it were at the insistence of the people that these changes were made but I am not seeing it for now.

In summary, what I am saying is the answer to this issue is a balance of economics, effect on education, and the environment. If it cost more that the current system but increased what students got from their studies, wouldn't it be worth it? If it were cheaper and better for the environment but introduced complexity, etc to the classroom which had a negative effect on education would it be worth it? You get my drift. Lots of very difficult and extremely important considerations.

1 Votes

Unfortunately, a theoretical discussion that will never get implemented - kinda like the impact of carpooling on our environment - sounds very good on paper (or your linux laptop!) but that's where it stays...

1 Votes

I am all for this idea, however, 1 notebook PC, is not the same funcionally as a few sheets of paper spread about in front of you. 3 note boks per kid, would provide a similar functionality. Sad but true, working with paper is not the same as looking at 1 screen !

0 Votes

RE: Smalltransport (#5):

You raise an interesting point about human behavior needing to change - parents have been working with the "folder of paper" in the backpack of school-age kids for years, and to suddenly ask parents to either "check a website" or "Check for updates on the notebook" would be an effort.

My favorite line about the "paperless Office" is this: The paperless office is as likely as the paperless bathroom ;^)

0 Votes
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