Classroom handouts / Earth Day 2010

I once was a collector of handouts for training and conference sessions - massive piles of the stuff organized by the event, job or subject. I even had stuff from my Master's thesis in file cabinets, never touched over multiple decades. Sadly in hoarding, I never referenced or used those "assets." I have since recycled what seemed like metric tons of old handouts. Today, I prefer to make notes in a composition book and use downloaded or online presentation materials. These assets are used, better organized and valued.

Last conference I attended was "green," meaning limited paper material for us to tote, handouts were online. Still I heard grumbling about no physical handouts even though the conference provided free and ubiquitous WiFi. Looking at the crowd, many we're my age. Old habits are so hard to break.

When I present or design a course, I think about the handout issue. Is there a better way than just sending reams through the printer? Should the supporting content be online? Should there be only limited material that is strategically chosen? Should we ask the learner about their preference?

In Sunday's NYT supplement EducationLife (yes, we receive and read a physical newspaper daily, old habits), I found an interesting story on debate teams moving from tubs of paper to laptop-based storage and the resulting debate culture change. It's a journey.

Happy Earth Day and consider the environment when printing not only personally but for learning as well.

Reflections on Earth Day

Reading the NYT Magazine for April 19, 2009, this chart in The Way We Live Now, Natural Happiness, caught my eye.

As I'm getting older, I do observe nature and take note of subtle changes from day to day. As we tend the multiple gardens or walk the dogs, I study for changes in the leaf pattens, the hint of fragile tentacled asparagus, watch for the explosions of flowers and perfumed air. The birds twitter about (not microblogging) as they gather food for their young. Bunnies hop around scoping the gardens while the hawks circle lazily above. The box turtle begins the migration from the bog to the salad greens. I appreciate the sunrises and sunsets as well as the Spring storms. Using the rich compost for nurture our garden keeping a good amount of waste out of the landfill.

A few years ago I doubt I would have noticed. Didn't get into this although I enjoyed being outdoors, even mowing the yard. My bandwidth was devoted to other processes - career and office politics.

I now have a much deeper appreciation of diversity and I hope that makes me a better person.

Happy Earth Day.