Kermit the Frog was wrong! It is easy to be green. We waste so much paper in school. Every test I print is 150 copies. Public School teachers spend an enormous amount of money out-of-pocket every year. Last year alone, I spent more than $200 on ink and used an entire case of paper (5000 sheets) in my classroom. This seems like a huge waste of resources.
I teach Language Arts to 120, 6th grade students every day. I have my own printer in class. I let my students use it to print their essays and reports. I also use it for everyday copies of vocabulary words or study questions. Last year I used more than a case of paper and over 20 black ink cartridges.
I have a laptop and LCD projector in my classroom. If I had an ELMO document camera, I could project text on to a screen and eliminate 150 sheets of paper every day. We can also show exemplary student writing samples and let them edit their own work as a group. If there is a photo in a book I would like them to see, I can just project it onto the screen and not try to "pass the book around", which is very distracting.
This will make it possible for my students to "go green" in our class. Think of the amount of paper I could save every year. The possibilities of how to incorporate this technology into my daily lessons are endless. I'm sure I haven't thought of them all, yet. But this would be a good start, by letting ELMO prove Kermit wrong. Show them that it's "easy being green".
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