Imagine a classroom that has not the thing that's long been considered a necessary part to reading and writing ? Paper. No notebooks, no textbooks, no test paper. Nor are there any pencils or pens, which always seem to run out of ink at the critical (关键的) moment.
A "paperless classroom" is what more and more schools are trying to achieve.
Students don't do any handwriting in this class. Instead, they use palm (手掌) size, or specially-designed computers. The teacher downloads texts from Internet libraries and sends them to every student's personal computer.
Having computers also means that students can use the Web. They can look up information on any subject they're studying. From maths to social science.
High school teacher Judy Herrell in Florida, US, described how her class used the Web to learn about the war in Afghanistan (阿富汗) over one year ago.
"We could touch every side of the country through different sites ? from the forest to refugee camps (难民营)," she said. "Using a book that's three or four years old is impossible."
And exams can go online too. At a high school in Tennessee, US, students take tests on their own computers. The teacher records the grades on the network for everyone to see and then copies them to his own electronic grade book.
A paperless classroom is a big step towards reducing the waste of paper. High school teacher Stephanie Sorrell in Kentucky, US, said she used to give about 900 pieces of paper each week to each student.
"Think about the money and trees we could save with the computers," she said.But, with all this technology, there's always the risk (危险) that the machines will break down. So, in case of a power failure or technical problems, paper textbooks are still widely available (可用的) for these hi-tech students.

请想像有这样的一种教室,这里没有那些长期以来被认为是读写必需品的东西:没有纸,没有笔记本,没有教科书,没有考卷,甚至连一只铅笔或钢笔都没有,而那些钢笔中的墨水,往往在关键时刻就正好用完了.

越来越多的学校正在发展这种"无纸教室".

在这种教室里,学生无需用手写什么.取而代之的是,他们用只有巴掌大小的,或者是专门为他们设计的电脑写东西.教师们从互连网图书馆中下载了教材后,将其发到每个学生的个人电脑上,供学生学习用.

配备了电脑也意味着学生们能够利用网络的各种功能.他们可以在网上查看任意一门他们正学习着的课程的资料,从数学到社会学,应有尽有.

在美国佛罗里达州的一所高中任教的朱迪.荷瑞尔,向我们描述了她的班级是如何通过互连网,了解有关发生在一年多前的阿富汗战争的情况的.

"我们可以通过不同的场景,从森林到难民营,来全面地了解这个国家,"她说."而试图通过一本3,4年前出版的书来做到这些,却是不可能的."

考试也能在网上进行.在美国田纳西州的一所高中里,学生们在他们自己的电脑上参加考试.教师在网上打分给每个学生看,然后再把这些成绩复制到自己的电子成绩册上.

无纸教室向减少纸张浪费迈进了一大步.在美国肯塔基州工作的高中教师丝黛芬妮.索瑞尔说,她过去一个星期就要给每个学生发大约900张纸给孩子们用.

"试想一下,改用计算机后,我们将节省多少钱,挽救多少树啊,"她说.然而,停机的危险也始终伴随着这种技术的全面推广.因此,当停电或机器故障发生时,这些已采用高科技手段学习的学生们,仍旧广泛地使用纸制教科书作为替代品.