9 Sept 2008

Paperless classes

Since a few years I am a casual lecturer for Curtin University and TAFE and since this semester also at the School of Fine Wood in Dwellingup. Everyone knows how much paper the education area turns over...
Last year I had enough of the piles of paper I had to distribute to my classes, so I started with a test with the "Design Professional Practice" class for interior designers at TAFE. We started a class blog, everyone participated and we saved at least a kubic meter of paper by doing everything online.
This year I started to lecture Sustainable Design at Curtin and the first thing was of course the class blog. The blogs are closed for outsiders, only members have access. The blog functions as a back up for all information gathered during the unit. In the mean time I've started another Sustainable Design Class blog for this semester.
Next to having a class blog for all information students hand their work in by email or using a memorystick. This of course is only possible in case of reports and research, some design projects still need prototypes and sometimes hand drawings while most students nowadays design online with CAD programs.
When possible I let students hand in their work digital to avoid printed paper, both students and me are happy with this solution, they because it saves them money and time, me by having less paper to carry around. And the main thing is we save heaps of prestine trees and loads of water to manufacture paper!

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