In all honesty paperless is great, ends up saving the team money, and helps you win rounds.

We also use Dropbox, which lets us share files instantly as soon as they are updated.

http://www.signupgenius.com/backtoschool

to recruit PTA members and sign up our class parents for our Halloween Harvest, teacher appreication week, fun run in the sun, our book fair, dances and other volunteer needs.

Last night I presented it to our PTA board at our first general assembly meeting. It was very well received and I believe our Room Mom coordinator is going to recommend that all of her class moms use the program to help improve parental involvment in the classrooms.

I just thought this could be something that you may want to look into further for your next event.

1. Either connect both the viewing laptop and the main laptop to the internet or, if there is no internet connection available, connect using an ad-hoc wireless network:
Windows: http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/create-a-quick-ad-hoc-wireless-network-connection-between-two-computers-in-windows-vista/
Mac: http://www.macworld.com/article/46658/2005/09/octmobilemac.html

2. With Skype installed on both laptops, start a Skype chat between the laptops, then on the main laptop go to Share > Share Screen.

re: stealing speeches

When saving your speech file, there is a “Tools” drop-down box in the Save As window, close to the Save button. Under “General Options” in Word 2007 or “Security Options” in Word 2003, you can set a password for editing and opening the document. The other team will only be able to view the file if you enter the password on their computer.

You can also disable the cut & copy functions within that document: ALT F11, then, in the project explorer on the left, right-click on Project(Speech) – or whatever the file name is, just NOT Project(Normal) – and Insert > Module. Then insert the following code
Sub EditCopy(): End Sub
Sub EditCut(): End Sub

re: difficult to scroll

Go to View > Reading Layout in Word 2003 or Full Screen Reading in Word 2007, then you only need to tap the right arrow key to flip through the document – no need to scroll.

re: crashes

Go to that Orb in the upper-left corner > Word Options in Word 2007 or Tools > Options in Word 2003, then under the Save tab set AutoRecover to “every 1 minute.”

re: steals prep

No need for USB transfers – set up an adhoc network, then on the main laptop right click on some folder and select “Sharing and Security” (or Properties > Share) then select “Share this folder on the network” with “Everyone.” Drop your speech file into this folder, then anyone connected to your ad-hoc network (either your opponents or the viewing laptop) can view that folder by clicking the “Network” icon from their desktop or start menu.

“Public Relations
In the very beginning of our paperless transition, Whitman proposed two “community norms” we thought would help facilitate fairness during paperless debates, as well as alleviate some of the concerns our debaters had. Neither norm was objected to by any of the people we debated over the course of the year, and they seem to have been reasonably accommodated by most if not all of our opponents. I list them again here as no more than an ongoing request – it’s certainly the case that practices will evolve along with the more widespread utilization of paperless debating, and these types of norms will likely take care of themselves, in time. More importantly, we feel it’s the burden of the team pushing a new practice (paperless) to bear the brunt of the responsibility for accommodation should anyone disagree.

Nonetheless, we feel the following practices would be best for competitive equity:
• The opposing team should, to as reasonable a degree as possible, minimize “looking ahead” in the speech document to try and gain a competitive advantage by figuring out what will be read later in the speech. This is especially applicable in rounds where something such as a new affirmative is being read. While obviously only so practicable, we feel that an honest attempt is still better than nothing.

• Opposing teams or judges who opt to transfer the “speech” document to their personal computers should delete them at the conclusion of the debate. We feel that taking evidence wholesale is the equivalent of taking a paper file. We’d hope the majority of the community would agree that stealing files crosses the line, especially given the easy availability of cites.

Two other issues bear mentioning in relation to paperless teams interacting with the nonpaperless
world, especially judges.

• Prep Time – Some judges have expressed concern that the process of jumping files, setting up computers, etc…takes too much time. In particular, they seem to be frustrated that it appears as if the paperless team is “stealing prep” while waiting for something such as a Word document to open on the viewing computer. While a legitimate concern, I think it is misplaced, for several reasons. First, after a season of debating with seven paperless teams, I can say that I’ve noticed zero difference in the average length of time it takes to conclude our debates vs. rounds involving only paper. Secondly, I would say that paperless more frequently saves time, by eliminating the “stolen prep” involved in giving each teams evidence back to each other, searching under desks for piles of misplaced 2NC cards, or looking for the lost CP text. My hunch is that this time is significantly greater in the world of paper, but judges are used to it taking place, while they are not used to the time involved in jumping files.
“

Plus, most rounds likely require that you flow the majority of each speech if you’re exclusively taking a position in the next speech. Blocks and 2NRs generally, or at least half of the time, want a pretty good flow of the entire 2AC/1AR. While there are always going to be examples where a debater can get ahead by looking ahead, it would certainly not be advantageous in every single debate.

For example

1nc: T, 2 CPs, a DA, and a K
2ac: puts the K on the bottom

since the 2n wants to take the K for nine minutes, he/she scrolls down to the bottom of the 2ac and preps the K, thus saving tons of prep time.

Gist: If you can, it’s probably a good idea to wait. New software (Chrome OS, Microsoft Web Office, Google Wave, etc.) and new hardware (a netbook is now available for $1 + $60/mo. internet) will be or already are here. Real-time collaborative editing or file-syncing (e.g. Google Wave, Google Docs, CoWord, DropBox, Live Office, or a host of other products) will eliminate much of the need for Whitman/Denver’s admirable, yet unnecessarily* complicated solutions.

It’s probably a bad idea to make investment decisions on laptops or templates based on technology available the last few years (USB drives, for example) instead of what’s likely to come within the next year or two.

*I sit in awe of what they’ve done with existing tech constraints. I only say it’s “unnecessarily complicated” in comparison to technology I expect to be available in the future, since that’s the important reference point when making these decisions now.

1. Costs:
Right now, $.99 for the laptop, + $60/mo for 3G (usually a 2 year contract). Yes, as in less than $1 for the laptop, plus the $60/mo for the internet.

I predict (with no actual evidence to present) that these monthly internet costs to go down as data networks improve dramatically over the next 2 years.

2. The Internets are Coming:

These new netbooks will be connected to the internet without needing access to the tournament’s wireless. It makes USB’s and all that complicated file saving irrelevant.

I just started looking into real-time collaborative editing of Word documents. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_real-time_editor#List_of_current_editors). Google Wave will soon introduce real-time editing as well, and even Microsoft already has a free Office add-on to allow online collaboration. And, Microsoft is about to announce their new online version of Office any day now. There’s also dropbox… which I universally recommend because it’s AWESOME (use my link! https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTEyOTIyOTU5).

The gist: I wouldn’t recommend making a transition right now. I think it’ll be a LOT easier to do it when online tools for collaboration and netbooks have grown up a bit — a ton of new Web 2.0 products are coming out over the next year and you risk giving yourself a lot more work than necessary trying to force it now.

All tournaments this past year were reachable by a bus ride for 2 to 4 hours. However the bigger events like Harvard and Berkeley are far from the Southern region and likely will be the tournaments the “paperless” process is tested at first. My mind is open to being swayed but I still hold to the belief (in regards to computer crashes) that “If anything bad can happen, it will happen”