Going Paperless - Help!

This year, we heard lots about how many copies we were making, paper we were using, etc. I am blessed to not be limited on any of these aspects, but they are hinting that this might not be the case for next year. I don't like the papers just as much as the next teacher, and fighting and praying to the copier gods that it wouldn't jam on me for the billionth time is very frustrating. The things that cause me the most paper are by far TESTS! In the past, we have used Edusoft grading system with scantrons to automatically grade our tests for us, but we have been told this will be cut next year. We have been so upset about this because it saves me HOURS of grading!

So let me break the numbers down for you...

A test is usually two to four copies (front and back) and scantron. They get their test back with a report on it as well so for a total of four to six pages per student, 115 students, that is anywhere from 460 to 690 copies per test!! Let's not forget the two to four page study guide as well, so that's another 230 to 460 copies. For a grand total of anywhere from 690 to 1,050 copies per test!!!I know that's a lot of copies, and when we design the test we make it take up as little room as possible by shrinking diagrams and columns. But what can I do to help limit this? We do copy tests front to back so this cuts the paper in half, but as a school we are charged by the copy and then by the paper separately.

The first thing that comes to mind is a class set. So now I would only need 30 copies of the test, and if you are keeping up that is 60 to 120 copies for the test, but I would still need the scantron and study guides. This is what a lot of my other team teachers use. My concerns with this is that in math, you need to be able to highlight, cross out, show your work, etc. to questions to solve sometimes. (And in a perfect world, my students would do this 100% of the time!) But I do have several students that don't even write so much as their name on the test, or show any work! (that's a whole other topic in itself) We also do test corrections, so how do I get them a copy of the test so they can do these for questions they missed? I am not comfortable with posting a test to my class website.

With Edusoft, some teachers have them take the actual test on the computer. My same concerns apply to this as well as we take our MAP assessments on the computer as well and some students don't focus. Plus I think this opens up questions about cheating through the internet as well. And this is a luxury we don't have for next year, gotta love budget cuts.

This is only accounting for tests and study guides, no graphic organizers, EXIT slips, quizzes, assignments, etc. We also did a "default activities packet during part of the year that was 9 pages of critical thinking, puzzles, math related activities that students could work on when done with an assignment and  could earn a prize at the end of the quarter if they did them all. WHEW!

So with all of the other technology we have available, there has to be something that would help?! Right?!

OCTI 2013 is here!

Oldham County Technology Institute is here! Two days worth of professional development that I am actually going to enjoy! Lots of apps, websites, collaboration, and observing technology in the classroom.

Today we had a session on apps and websites to use in the classroom. What I loved about these sessions is it gave us a lot of resources in a small amount of time. They talked about 50 apps and 40 websites in two hour long sessions !They talked about the highlights and important information about each app or website, and then you can go out on your own and discover the apps/websites more in depth. I created an app folder called "Apps to Try" because I had so many new ideas. After each session, we had breakout sessions that focused on one of three different things that were discussed during the session.

Tomorrow we are observing in the morning, and come back for a "technology smack down!" and Teacher Productivity app seminar. I am presenting Teacher Assistant during the "smack down", 3 minutes to tell about your app. Whoever has the best app wins a prize.

Here are some of the links to presentations that we had!

1. 40 Apps in 40 Minutes - a little information about a lot of apps! divided into topic groups! I made an apps to try folder on my iPad of apps I was enticed by and have gone in and played with each one to see if I liked them or not.
2. Notability  
3. 40.5 Sites in 40 Minutes - similar to 40 apps, but about websites.
4. The Flipped Classroom - using videos to flip your classroom
5. Computing in the Educational Cloud - Dropbox, Google Drive