WHEN DATA COLLECTION GOES GREENUsing Response Solutions in Place of Paper

Introduction

Schools across the country have always been committed to making a difference in their communities. One way they can do this is by paying attention to their consumption of resources. Many schools are making countless efforts to install programs that will save energy, recycle and reduce waste. “Going Green” has become a rallying cry that involves students, teachers and staff alike, and by doing so, school districts can invest more in their children because they are using less money to operate properly. When an educational system is operating efficiently, the learning and teaching climate is more favorable. It is imperative that traditional teaching tools are transformed to increase educational performance and help save the environment in a collective effort.

The mass volume of printing and copying papers across a school district can continue to consume strained budgets and staff time, along with millions of pieces of paper becoming trash. For example, if a teacher is given a 50 ream paper allotment for the school year, and each of those reams holds 500 sheets, that’s 25,000 pieces of paper per teacher. If that same school district has 200 teachers, this adds up to 5 million pieces of paper in a year. This does not include paper that students bring in on their own or paper used at the district level, which all typically end up in the same place, the recycling bin.

Moving to a paperless school district leads to great environmental savings in many ways. According to the website, Reduce.org, it takes more than 1½ cups of water to make one sheet of paper. Therefore, if a school district saved 5 million pieces of paper, they would also be saving over 7 million cups of water, as well as reducing additional energy costs associated with manufacturing the product.

Clicking Toward a Greener School

Investing in paper replacements makes financial and environmental sense. Using a student response system for formative and summative assessments will ensure that precious resources are saved and greenhouse gases are reduced. Paper will no longer be needed for pop quizzes, final exams, course evaluations or exit slips. All the assessment can now be completed with Turning Technologies’ ResponseCard NXT. Schools will also see an increase in student engagement, motivation and achievement.

Turning Technologies, the industry leader in response technology, knows how important it is to reduce, reuse and recycle. Replacing paper with a clicker greatly reduces paper consumption and can help eliminate it completely. Once the data collection system is in place, the same clicker can be used for years.

Using the Turning Technologies hardware and software is quick and easy. The system works with existing programs, which helps eliminate the time it would take to train teachers and students. The interactivity and engagement of the clickers allow teachers to easily gather feedback and check for understanding while making data-driven instructional decisions – all without the use of paper and pencil. The ResponseCard NXT can also be used to administer high-stakes summative exams, through Turning Technologies’ Triton Data Collection System.

Green Testing

Many schools invest in bubble sheets or computer stations to administer final exams because of the advantages to both systems. Triton offers this same ease and reliability of paper-based testing with the back-end efficiency of computer-based testing. By using Triton, schools can reduce their paper consumption and costs. They can purchase one device for the students that last them the entire year.

When it is time to test, teachers pass out the Responsecard NXT and administer the test. It’s that simple. The grading is done electronically and provides on-demand scoring for timely use of the data. No paper is needed to run reports once the test is completed and the ResponseCard NXT is once again ready for everyday use.

When compared to bubble sheets and computer lab testing, the Triton system has many environmental advantages.

• Reduction in use of paper• Reduction in computer energy consumed• No energy needed to run scanners• No packaging needing to send bubble sheets• No paper needed to transmit test data• On-demand electronic data reporting