With tools like Google Drive and Google Classroom, teachers are given all kinds of ways for students to complete and turn in assignments online. Now, while some teachers are using these programs to their full potential, others simply are not.

There are lots of reasons that teachers should accept work turned in online. Turning things in on a virtual “classroom” gives students more time to work, but also gives them a hard deadline. I can work on an assignment until 11:59 pm on the day it’s due, but if I turn it in after that, my teacher can see that I turned it in late. Personally, I think this has helped me procrastinate less. When I have the option to turn in an assignment online, I can just pull out my phone and work on it anytime, while, when the assignment is on a worksheet or in a packet, I’ll have to find a pencil and have somewhere to write on if I want to work.

Using Google Classroom is also more environmentally friendly. Teachers can send every student in a class an online copy of a worksheet to be completed on Google Drive, and students can turn in papers instead of printing them out or using a worksheet from a teacher.

Now, while I understand that there are some things that are just easier to complete on a real piece of paper, there are many things that can be completed either way. Four times already this year, I have been asked to print out a copy of an essay or research paper after it had already been turned in on Google Classroom. This may not seem like a problem to some people, but to me it does. Why should I have to both turn in my paper and digitally submit it to get full credit?

One may think that teachers would love how Google Classroom lets you leave comments on papers and grade them right in the program, but apparently not. One teacher told me that she likes to grade papers “the old fashioned way,” with pen and paper. I understand wanting to do something the way you know how, but the world, especially in the education department, is constantly evolving and adapting to new improvements in technology and equipment. Teachers already do most things online, like communicate through email and put assignments in Powerschool, so why shouldn’t everything just be in one place? Is it actually more convenient for you to pull out a red pen and mark all over my precious essay, then give it back to me the next day, or would it be even easier (for both the student and the teacher) to type in your comments on my work on a Google doc? I would have to say the latter.

I do appreciate, though, that many teachers are acclimating to this online world that we now live in. This has made it easier for my peers and I to complete work digitally and still have the option to turn assignments in in class.

So, while many teachers are utilizing online options, some are not. This makes school work harder for students to complete and turn in, resulting in missing assignments, low grades and, most importantly, students falling behind in classes because of one assignment they forgot to print out.