Jose Gomez on Teaching Paperless Programs

Jose Gomez - Evergreen Rotating Faculty Librarian
Summer 2008: Crime and Punishment / Political Problems and Controversies

Office of Sustainability: What inspired you to launch a paperless program?

Jose: I have always been interested in sustainability efforts at Evergreen and this summer I wanted to do my part.  Last year I saw a graph that illustrated how much paper we use in relation to the height of our clock tower, and after that I began looking around the office and noticed a huge amount of paper that may have been unnecessarily printed.  It was at this point that I felt compelled to do what I could to help preserve Mother Earth.  I decided to see if I could teach both of my summer online courses (Crime & Punishment and Political Problems & Controversies) 100% paperless. I succeeded!  I didn't exchange a single piece of paper with my 60 online students.  No books were used and all of the study materials were on the Internet.

Office of Sustainability: How did you implement your paperless class?

Jose: I first had to familiarize myself with Evergreen’s Moodle site.  After a brief training session I was able to upload all of the content I had researched and developed for my courses onto the Moodle site.  Twice a week for each course, I uploaded point-counterpoint articles and audio files on a particular issue, such as the death penalty.   My students posted their work on our Moodle site, and all communication between students and the faculty was via message board, telephone, e-mail or chat room.
After reading the different perspectives and listening to a debate on each issue, the students posted “critical comments” about what they had learned.  They also responded to each others’ postings.  Finally, students reconvened online at a set time for a two-hour seminar via the chat room.  At the end of the quarter,  students were required to turn in  point-counterpoint essays on each issue of their choice-- all of this was done digitally, either on Moodle or via email   I made a conscious effort not print off any of their essays, and I made all of my comments via email or on Moodle.

Office of Sustainability: Did you get any feedback from the students as to whether or not they were printing off their reading material?

Jose: I’ll admit that reading course materials online is not always convenient for many students--so, I assume that some of them may have printed material out.  I was initially focusing on whether or not it was possible for me as a teacher to go paperless and still be effective.  I did encourage the students not to print off articles; however it was not required.  
At the end of the quarter, Moodle automatically created a digital portfolio of their writing, a great convenience when it came time for me to write their evaluations.     Now that I know it can be done--- it is something I will integrate and promote in all of my future programs!  I imagine that the growing demand and convenience of digital book readers—like Kindle for example— may make the facilitation of paperless programs even more accessible and successful.

Office of Sustainability: What advice do you have for others on how they can go paperless with their programs/studies?

Jose: My advice is to start out small. Think about how you can minimize your paper consumption within your program. Once you have identified how you can minimize, seek out the tools that can make it feasible.  And I completely understand that there are times when printing is necessary.  However, if we all made an effort to use the digital resources available to us, it would be possible to drastically reduce the amount of paper we consume at Evergreen.