Printed class material has been a bit of an issue the whole time I've had my current job - the TA room computer isn't connected to a printer so I can't print my own stuff there. It is also not practical in the Pond to set my own printer up and make a master copy at home, although I would be able to photocopy things at work (for the time being) if I did manage that. Usually Ducki has done my printing, which has meant that I've had to fit my preparation around the times he has to be at work. That's going to change, as a) divisions will no longer have their own dedicated printers/copiers, but instead everyone will need to use a central print room with card-controlled access* and b) I'm going to be working for two divisions rather than one this semester, so I'm not convinced Ducki should be printing my stuff anyway.

I'd already decided to move towards getting students to print the handouts themselves where possible. This will require a lot of nagging to check the intranet, but isn't the end of the world. However, that still leaves open the question of my own copy of lesson plans, handouts and so on. I had dim memories from when I first got the Kindle of being told it was possible to load documents on it and save carrying huge quantities of paper. Today, I explored that.

How to get a Word document onto a Kindle (of the old-skool variety, but I suspect the newer ones are the same):
-Word docs as such don't work on a Kindle. It is perfectly possible to copy them, but they don't show up on the home screen.
-Luckily, the most recent versions of Word have a facility for saving files as PDFs. Hover your mouse over 'save as' to see this.
-Go into the relevant folder, highlight the PDF you just made, click 'copy'.
-Connect your Kindle to the computer. In case you haven't discovered this, you pull the plug off the charger to reveal a USB connector.
-Open the Kindle via 'My Computer' - it showed up as 'Kindle' for me, but if this isn't the case for you it will be among the removable drives somewhere.
-Open the folder marked 'documents' and paste your file in there. You should then be able to find it next time you turn your Kindle on.

*Apparently an efficiency measure, to cut costs, because apparently the time staff - especially admins - spend trekking up and down the corridor and queueing doesn't count as inefficient...