How can I avoid photocopying?

Question

I'm a teacher trying to minimise how much copying I do at work, mainly for the sake of the environment, but also to save money. I'd also like to offer some tips to my colleagues on how to save paper. Any ideas will be appreciated.

Answer 1

If the photocopier has a duplex feature to print onto both sides that would halve your paper usage, the A3->A4 option is also helpful (or it is if the country your in uses proper paper sizes) since it allows you to fit too pages on one without any wasted space (US paper has the wrong aspect ratios to allow that, you'll get some wasted space if you photocopy two US 'letter' sized pieces of paper onto a single 'letter' sized paper).

Though you do need to be careful not to go overboard to save paper, if you reduce things you do need to make sure they are still readable and you also need to make sure there are enough copies made.

Increased use of electronic documents could help but unless every student has a laptop you'll probably still need handouts (even then you'd probably still need photocopied handouts).

Answer 2

Well, putting the material on the internet, as in a school website might be the perfect solution if you originate the material, but it might violate copyright otherwise.

Having a rewritable CD that kids can take to and from school, one that you can duplicate readily should it be lost or used to scare away squirrels, can allow you to present the material for use at home or at school. It can allow you to provide links to other web pages so that you need not always violate copyright.

It can be helpful if kids can invite other kids home to study on their family computer. (or their personal computer)

I know, his use of technology is going to separate have from have not children, and you will still have to solve your problem of photocopying for the have not kids.

Answer 3

print double sided for one.

use recycled paper

Answer 4

Quit teaching and stop poisoning the youth of America with the Evironmentalist wacko agenda. Please let me know how many copies you would have made so I can increase my "carbon footprint" accordingly.

Answer 5

write everything by hand...

Answer 6

E-mail whenever possible, rather than printing.  Reduce margins and font so you fit more per page.  Use a projector in class rather than handouts, maybe?  

A lot depends on who and what you teach.  Would it be possible for your students to be emailed assignments or turn them in online rather than printing worksheets or instructions?   If not possible for all your students, it should be possible for some.  Get their parents permission and their email addresses so they can complete assignments and submit them via email.  You could then print just enough for the kids that need a hard (paper) copy.

Try to send home things less frequently.  For example, send the latest news once every two weeks or month rather than weekly, fitting as much as you can on a page.  Email this to parents with email, as well- printing only what you need.

Recycle paper in your classroom.  You could print on the blank side of used material.  Encourage students to help save paper by not being wasteful.  

I hope you found something of use here!  : )

Peace.  

Answer 7

I know a few teacher with the same goal. Our school has all printers set to automatically print double sided. Depending on the grade level some suggestions may work better than others.

for math drills, use small white boards and put the problems on the over head or chalk/white board.

Tests, use a separate answer sheet. I know a high school teacher that reuses her tests. She uses a sheet that looks like the standardized test fill in the bubbles and uses it for many tests. So, chapt 1 test uses answeres 1-25, chapt 2 uses 26-50 etc. So each semester she only has to toss out 1 piece of paper per student for all the testing.

Out high school offers paperless communications, when you register you decide how you want to be notified. I use paperless, so I sign a single sheet of paper saying both me and my student are aware of where online to locate the student handbook and that we have reviewed it. We also get all communications via email. It has dramatically reduced all the papers that are associated with back to school time.

One more tip, we are encouraging our students and staff to complete the cycle and buy recycled. We ask them to look for recycled content for their school supplies as well as items donated to the classroom.

Answer 8

Try writing, posting and displaying the information in your classroom and asking students to look around and read what you have displayed and why and tell them that your quizzing them on the information.

Ask students to help you save money with some ideas of thier own at the beginning of class and ask them each week or day if they came up with anything. It may teach them to save a buck.

I love this questions you can help a lot with this idea.  

Answer 9

print two sides.  have a shared server drive with controlled access and use email.  it's unfortunate that the electronic revolution has resulted in more paper rather than less because we can so easily reprint stuff that we previously would have saved and filed

Answer 10

use text that are on line versus books