Once upon a time, children came to school lugging bags full of heavy textbooks for each class. Their work was done in large exercise books that could be misplaced or deliberately forgotten, and every piece of work they submitted was handwritten or printed on paper that would be given to the teacher, who would then have to collate an entire classroom’s worth of loose sheets. They were also dealing with carting around their own copies of textbooks, class records, corrected work and any of the loose paper detritus of modern education.
Does this sound familiar? Quite apart from the back strain possible for all concerned, it’s best we don’t think about the small forest every student has been indirectly responsible for cutting down over the course of their F–12 years.
But this was the way of the past. In the future, teachers will teach and students will learn in the paperless classroom. A classroom where the majority of learning is done on devices, where students are instantly linked to each other and to the teacher, and where records and results are instantly updated. Paperless schools are better for the environment and for the spine. They remove headaches surrounding tracking down errant pieces of work for both students and educators, and they appeal to a generation of students that is as comfortable with technology as they are with breathing.
CARS & STARS Online is fully committed to the ideal of the paperless classroom. In fact, if you so choose it can be a completely digital experience for both student and educator.
Students read stories on their devices and answer multiple-choice questions immediately afterwards by selecting options rather than marking worksheets or submitting written answers. Results are transmitted instantly with no handover process necessary. Gone are the days of children having to remember to bring their written homework with them to school the next day for submission and marking. With CARS & STARS Online, the process is entirely automated and completely integrated into the student experience.
Best of all, this digital experience can travel with both the student and the teacher – CARS & STARS Online is accessible from any device at any time.
For teachers, CARS & STARS Online eliminates the need to hand out and take in heavy textbooks, and there is no work to collect at the end of the class for marking. In fact, there’s barely any marking – student responses are immediately checked upon submission and require no correction. Records of results and student progress are all part of the system. For teachers, CARS & STARS Online removes heavy, time-consuming paper tasks and allows them to focus on the most important element – their teaching.
