Paper planners? In today’s electronic age?
It seems that in almost every area of life, we are moving away from paper. Our news, books, calendars, new patient forms at the doctor’s office have gone paperless. Even recipes are often electronic! Banks and stores offer emailed receipts rather than paper.
And yes, even many homeschool organizational systems are paperless. All work is recorded completely online.
We are pretty passionate about homeschooling with paper planners. So what are the advantages of a paper planner?
Here are four advantages to consider
- A paper planner provides a permanent record. Yes, an online version can be stored too, but that storage has to be regularly evaluated to ensure long-time accessibility. With the paper version, there’s no concern about maintaining the right file format. Plus the paper version is easier to read (and perhaps more fun!). From a nostalgic point of view, the paper planner will show the student’s handwriting from that year, and include notes, doodles, and other reflections from an entire grade.
- Paper planners are tangible. Hold a paper planner in your hand. That’s a different experience than something stored in the cloud. To look at this from another angle, think about how digital photos are now the norm, but we print them to albums that we can hold and open and gather around. With an open paper planner in a student’s workspace, there’s no screen to refresh, no searching or scrolling for the right page. It’s just THERE. It’s tangible.
- Along those same lines, paper planners are portable. On a trip to the dentist, the coffee shop, or the library, a planner can be grabbed on the way out the door. Can you do that with a laptop? “Don’t forget the cord!” “Make sure you shut it down first!” “Be careful – don’t drop it!” With the busy lives of homeschool families, students need something that can keep them on track even on those days that they’re not at home.
Finally, paper is here to stay
- In recent years, experts and consumers thought print was dead and that the electronic version of books would take over the market. This has proved wrong. Analysts predicted that e-books would outsell print by 2015, but digital sales have slowed considerably. Many people are staying with print, or switching comfortably between paper and electronic, depending on what they’re doing. When it comes to your school planner, you won’t be alone in choosing paper.
Even in this digital age, don’t rule out paper when looking at homeschool organization options.
Head on over and see for yourself why you need to put your plan in place and get started homeschooling with paper planners. You won’t regret it!
