The Paperless Classroom

Image Source: http://edc.carleton.ca

I'd like to take a little time to talk about something that has been around for several years...the paperless classroom.  This is not a new way of teaching and learning, and it certainly isn't glamorous.  It is a basic day to day task that none the less can have a profound impact on the classroom.  Not only does a paperless classroom make the trees feel better, it can help a class stay organized, safe time and communicate more effectively.  (an all of that saved energy and time can be put into creating innovative and engaging educational experiences for kids).

Let's look at sharing files with each other.

In the good old days of blue ink ditto machines (if you don't know what I am talking about, you are very young) an educator would make an activity on a piece of paper and duplicate it.  That piece of paper would get handed out and the teacher would make and keep several extra copies because he/she knew someone would loose theirs and need another copy.  After class the educator would have to walk around the room picking up the papers that were left behind and the poor janitor would have to go around the entire building that night picking up all of the papers everyone (kids and adults) left on the floor.

Fast forward twenty years.  It is the good old days of black ink copy machines.  An educator would make an activity on a piece of paper and duplicate it.  That piece of paper would get handed out and the teacher would make and keep several extra copies because he/she knew someone would loose theirs and need another copy.  After class the educator would have to walk around the room picking up the papers that were left behind and the poor janitor would have to go around the entire building that night picking up all of the papers everyone (kids and adults) left on the floor.

Fast forward to today.  Is it the good old days of "The Test".   In some schools an educator will make an activity on a piece of paper and duplicate it.  That piece of paper will get handed out and the teacher will make and keep several extra copies because he/she knows someone will loose theirs and need another copy.  After class the educator will have to walk around the room picking up the papers that were left behind and the poor janitor will have to go around the entire building at night picking up all of the papers everyone (kids and adults) leave on the floor.   (Do you see a pattern here?)

What about a paperless classroom?  (NOT a classroom using a variety of technologies to improve teaching and learning, I mean a classroom that has made their physical material into a digital format)

An educator will create an assignment on a document creation program (Google Docs, MS Word, Pages etc...) and upload that file to an online source.  Students will download that file, manipulate it in some way and digitally send it to the educator.  The basic concept has not changed.  Make worksheet, fill out worksheet, turn in worksheet.  Nothing that couldn't be done on paper, so why bother buying students expensive equipment if they are just going to do the same old thing with a computer they were doing with a pencil?

There are a few reasons (although I'll leave the strength of these reasons to you).

1. The dog can't eat the laptop or the iPad.  (Although I have had people tell me that Google Docs ate their homework)
2. They don't forget a digital document in their locker, in their bedroom or on the bus.
3. They don't leave laptops or iPads lying all over the floor and all over the halls.
4. The teacher can't loose my homework
5. The teacher doesn't have to carry around a bunch of papers to drop into a mud puddle
6. There doesn't need to be a "back up" copy of every assignment
7. The time needed to hand out papers has just been reduced to less than 30 seconds
8. The time to gather papers has just been reduced to less than 30 seconds
9. Students don't have to carry around 10 different text books (they have them in digital format)
10. You don't have to stand in line at the copy machine to make a pdf

These reasons are in a paperless classroom where nothing else has changed.  No pedagogy shift.  Students still read the book and annotate, they still fill out the worksheet.  If we were to include the change in pedagogy that accompanies many paperless classrooms, this list would be enormous, but this will do for todays purpose.  Let's look at some of these benefits together.

Time, time, time.  One day I was observing one of my fifth grade classrooms and the educator asked the students to turn in their homework.  (This particular homework was a journal writing done in the app Paperdesk)  The students promptly opened their iPads and digitally "turned in" the file before the teacher finished taking attendance.  Fast forward to another classroom that does not have this opportunity.  I walked into the room and there was a flurry of activity.  One student was looking for a pencil to write their name on the paper, one person was looking for the stapler, some students were passing papers one way and some passing papers the other.  In all it took almost five minutes to get all of the papers gathered and the students ready to begin learning.  That's about 4 and 1/2 minutes of unnecessarily wasted time that is precious to any teacher.  That's just getting homework turned in...nothing had been passed out.

That darn dog.  Prior to the days of the digital classroom the dog got blamed for many misdeeds.  Once things became more digital I have noticed that the dog has been busy teaching the computer some dirty tricks.  (I have a really smart dog) The concept of "something happened and it wasn't my fault" is a constant theme in education and it probably will be for all time.  If you have a digital classroom, one way to alleviate this issue is to implement something like Google Docs.  If a student begins a Google document and shares it with you, you have instant access to that documents history.  So if Billy comes to you and says "I'm sorry Mr. Thomas, I've been working on it all week, but my work just disappeared" you can go into the document that was shared with you and say something like "I'm sorry Billy, I see that you started it a week ago, but you haven't been on it since." ... ouch...

Waiting for the copy machine can be a rough way to start your day.  Having to run across the building to make copies in the 2 minutes you have before class starts can be very stressful and is not a good way to begin a class.  If you share document digitally with your students (and you are a wee bit organized) you can send the file to the entire class in seconds.  If you only have a physical copy of what you want to share, you still have a couple of options.  Flatbed scanners are a cheap way to scan documents into a pdf format.  Another way is to use that gigantic copy machine we all love so much.  Many multi function machines (if set up for it) can scan documents and send them to you via email or save them directly to a school server without ever making a physical copy.  It's easy peasy.  If you would like to try this method to digitize your papers, ask your school secretary.  I bet they know if your machines can do this or not.

Another benefit of the paperless classroom is exposing students to the digital tools they will use when they get older.  As educators dare to embrace this new world that is so different from the one we grew up in, the last thing they need to do is stumble on a project because they or the students are unfamiliar with a specific technology.  If educators and students experience the technologies that make the paperless classroom possible, they are also experiencing the same technologies that allow them to do a wide variety of things to expand their learning.

If you would like to learn more about the paperless classroom, here are some resources for you:

http://www.paperlessclassroom.org/
http://thepaperlessclassroom.wordpress.com/
http://edudemic.com/2012/09/how-one-classroom-actually-used-ipads-to-go-paperless-part-1-research/
http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech059.shtml

If you would like information on how you can use digital tools in your classroom, please see my website at http://www.technologyskills.net

iPad Restrictions: Parental Controls for the iPad

I had an interesting conversation with a parent this week.  Her child was using their iPad to watch funny YouTube videos and in the process ran across a video that was not appropriate for a ten year old.  She, of course, was concerned and her first consideration was to install spyware on her child's iPad.  I don't personally believe in this approach, even if I do understand the concern.  However, in order to be informed myself and able to talk to parents about this type of issue I did a little research.

There are several "spyware" programs out there that cater to the iPad.  After reviewing them I realize that many of them (if not all of them) require you jailbreak your iPad.  This is not an option for anyone that has Apple Care as the warranty would become null and void immediately if you jailbreak your iPad.  But there are ways parents can have some of the control they may need or crave.

First, if the child's iPad is WiFi only, a web filter is a great thing to use.  I have suggested that parents who have iPads contact their internet service provider in order to see is they provide this service.  There are also other web based services such as OpenDNS that could be employed in these situations.  These types of options do not require you to install software on any of your devices and anyone using the wireless at your home would be under the same restrictions as the child (although there are override codes adults could use).

Second, there is the restriction settings on the iPad that can be set by an adult.  If you go into the System Settings of the iPad and tap on "General", you will see the word restrictions on the right hand side of the screen.  Tap that in order to set up restrictions on the iPad.  See my video below for this process. Changing the restrictions on an iPad is a good way to help filter the information a child might access from the iPad.  For example: you can set the age restrictions for movies and TV shows on the iPad.  This could prevent the child(ren) from renting inappropriate movies and shows from iTunes.  You can also set music to not allow sexually explicit material and Siri to ignore explicit language.  Basically, there are a fair amount of options here.

This solution does not solve my original query about filtering YouTube  but after a little looking there is one thing you can do in order to filter YouTube videos on a computer.  This solution works on both the iPad and any other device that uses a web browser to access YouTube   The downside to this is that in order to be thorough  you would need to repeat the filter process on every browser on the device.  For example, if you turn on the filter in Safari on the iPad, but not the "Google" app (which is also a web browser).  In order for the filter to be turned on in both web browsers, you would need to go through that process on each browser individually.

Here are your steps in filtering YouTube:

1. Open the browser and go to youtube.com
2. Log in to YouTube.com.  If you don't have a YouTube or Google account....get one.  They are very useful and required for what you are about to do.
3. Scroll to the very bottom of the page.
4. Change to "Desktop" mode by clicking on the word "Desktop" (blue text) in the bottom right hand corner of the page.  What we are looking for doesn't show in the default mobile view.
5. Now that you are in "Desktop" mode, scroll back down to the bottom of the screen.  you will see several YouTube options in black lettering.
6. Locate the option for "Safety" (you should see the word "off" next to it with a down arrow)
7. Tap on the down arrow next to the word "off".
8. Select the "On" radio button
9. Tap "Save"
10. Logout

Now that you have turned the YouTube filtering on, it cannot be turned off on that browser unless it is turned off by someone logged into YouTube as you (which is why it's important to log out when you are finished).  Don't forget, this is only good on each browser this process is completed in.  

This process does NOT work on proxy browsers such as Rover and Photon (browsers that allow you to view flash content by using a "proxy").  The YouTube browsing experience through one of these browsers isn't as nice as a standard browser, so reduces the "fun" factor for anyone choosing to view YouTube that way.

I would be interested to hear about what other people are doing to filter and secure iPads for kids.  Please feel free to leave a post with any of your ideas or you can email me at randy@technologyskills.net.  More information about iPads, including iPad video tutorials, can be found on my website at technologyskills.net.