Did you know that even “free” digital content is estimated to cost educators across the country $2 billion in hidden costs due to printing and copying expenses?

Office Depot released survey results in June that indicate digital resources could be costing up to $3,000 per teacher due to the hidden fees associated with copying and printing, somber news for those who believe replacing textbooks can help save school budgets. 

A solution, however, might be found in committing to a paperless classroom.

One teacher from Tulsa, Oklahoma is offering advice to educators who want to cut costs in their classroom by giving them tips on how to go totally paperless.

"Robert Cash, who teaches biology and advanced placement environmental science, says using Google Classroom has allowed him to use class time more efficiently and helped students stay on pace in the school’s new alternative learning center,” according to Tulsa World.

Google Classroom is a free online platform that is trusted in the education community as a valuable tool for classroom management.

Cash told Tulsa World that not only does using Google Classroom help him cut printing and copying costs, it also helps him better utilize the time he previously spent printing and copying to develop better lectures, lessons and assignments.

Cash and his peers originally adopted Google Classroom to help reduce the negative impact suspensions have on learning; “[t]he center allows students who have been disruptive in the classroom to continue to receive instruction in an alternative classroom setup.”

Finding out that it also gave him the freedom to go paperless was just an added bonus.

”…the rewards that I’m reaping from the effort I put into it in those first nine weeks—every day just gets easier and easier, because my kids know exactly what to do from the time they walk in until the time they leave,” Cash said to Tulsa World.

Read more about Cash’s experience here.

Nicole Gorman, Senior Education World Contributor