When All The Paper Is Gone!

The USMC has had a motto for a long time. Improvise, Overcome and Adapt.   This post is intended for the audience of educators and administrators who are both hesitant and reluctant to appreciate this ideology and practice.  It is not just a fleeting notion or idea yet practical and real. I am imploring the future of the paperless classroom and school is upon us.  It is already a reality in many schools and the current plan and goal of hundreds of others across the world.  It is not a matter of I don't think so or maybe anymore, but when?

The implementation of mobile technology in any and all forms referencing the movement of BYOD in schools at all levels has finally come to fruition in hundreds of school districts in America and thousands of schools respectively.

The question in which I would like to pose to my colleagues and contemporaries is what would we do if our textbooks and hard copies of curriculum, as well as our copy machines disappeared unannounced one day at the school in which you work?  What would you now do individually as a classroom teacher as well as a school community?  Would your school close its doors and shutdown?  Would we tell the students to go home?  Would we as lifelong educators confess to our stakeholders we can no longer teach the children?

We must, if we truly acknowledge the state of our world and the plight in which students now face in regards to their future productivity and success in the world as an adult, move expeditiously to accept and embrace the tools and resources provided to the learning environment by technology held in the hands of our students.  Innovative and progressive professional educators who see the potential and proverbial light in maximizing student engagement and learning via the use of mobile technology possessed by students should be forward thinking in both attitude and mindset.  The delivery of their instruction should demonstrate and reflect the reality of their potential by implementing their usage each and everyday as part of their planning and lessons.  Bear in mind if we are not part of the solution we are oftentimes  part of the problem.  Effective and successful educators plan and work  with the maxim and goal  to teach children to be problem solvers, no?

Amongst the other group of perhaps millions of educators around the globe are those who are simply indifferent either way.  Arguably, is it not possible they are the group in which are neither compassionate towards students wants and needs as well as passionate about their chosen profession?

To avoid being over rhetorical and long winded, as a  Marine and now longtime educator, it is our moral imperative to not only defend and protect those who are unable to do so themselves, but to improvise, overcome and adapt to the world and resources around us while figuring out effective and efficient means to deliver content and instruction to students of the 21st century via all resources, technology and otherwise, to maximize student engagement and success.

I look forward to hearing from all my contemporaries and colleagues regarding this revolutionary movement like no other.  What are YOU going to do when you have no paper or textbook to  deliver your instruction and teach your class?  

As always, yours in the good fight!