Paperless Classroom

What is a paperless classroom?
Each student in a paperless classroom uses Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). All homework and reading assignments are done on the PDAs. Paperless classrooms do not use copied ditto sheets or heavy textbooks.

How does a paperless classroom work?
In the paperless classroom all of the students’ work is done on individual PDAs and is then submitted to the teacher through infrared ports. In most paperless classrooms, the teacher downloads information, uses digital text of a public domain, or scans in ditto sheets and then simply beams the activity or information to a couple of students via infrared and those students, in turn, infrared to the students behind or beside them. The paperlessclassroom.org website states that, “The CE version of Windows was very compatible with the Windows 98 PC version that was used on the desktop so documents were easily copied, dragged and dropped and synched between PDA and PC.” The students of paperless classrooms can also take notes on their PDAs using handwriting recognition software.The paperless classroom in action.

What are the benefits of paperless classrooms?
The paperless classroom offers teachers the ability to simply download or scan texts for students to read on their PDAs. This saves the school money on the cost of textbooks and photocopying.

Tutorial
http://www.paperlessclassroom.org/howto/default.htm

Links
Eminence Middle School:
http://www.paperlessclassroom.org/

Electronic School.com:
http://www.electronic-school.com/2001/01/0101ewire.html

PaperlessClassroom:
http://www.paperlessclassroom.org/ktlc2003/KTLCworkshop_files/frame.htm

Encyclopedia of educational Technology: http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/paperlessclass/index.htm

Thoughts on the Paperless Classroom:
http://www.keller.com/dan/PaperlessClassroom.html