Please Stop Printing!

This post was generated from a recent device launch with which I have been working.  I have been involved with the deployment of ~900 Chromebooks intended for student use.  If you are familiar with Chromebooks, you know that they employ cloud printing.  As part of this deployment, cloud printing has been disabled due to the age of the printers in the schools as well as the desire to avoid having to revise the existing print server.

After the deployment, one of the most frequent complaints is that students cannot print from the Chromebooks.  The complaint leaves me entirely baffled.  The district is a Google Apps for Education system and all staff have Google accounts.  Google recently provided unlimited storage for all Drive accounts for education.  Students can save anything on the Chromebook to their Drives and share it with the teacher.  Why would they need to print?

I've Got the Need; The Need to Print

Which brings up the question: Why is there such an innate drive to print in education?  Does printed material hold an advantage over digital material?  Without heading too deep into philosophy, I will contend that paper does not hold an advantage over any other medium.  

With each change in technology, there have been critics who have decried how the technology will plunge society into another dark age.  When the printing press made books widely available, scholars lamented that the average person's ability to remember facts would decrease.  Did that happen?  No.  With the rise of TV, thinkers opined that attention spans would die, and we would not be able to remember facts.  Did that happen?  No.  Will the rise of the internet and digital culture destroy the minds of the youth?  No.

The reason that educators still print so much material is because they were taught in a society dominated by paper.  When we were in school, newspapers were still widely available.  The preferred method of communication was snail mail.  In short, we depended on paper.  With the change in society away from paper, I believe that printing and paper use in education will decline.  But, I also believe that it will take one more generation.

If we could force it to be sooner, that would be great.  The savings from printing and paper reduction would allow the development of innovative new educational programs.  In fact, if I were able to tell you some of the statistics about paper use in school districts, you would be astounded.  The number of print jobs and copy jobs in most districts (even small ones) runs to millions per month.  Imagine if that could be reduced by just half.  There would be hundreds of thousands of dollars available for new programs.

So, to end, if you are reading this post, please think about how much you print and whether you could make a change.