anotherthing - I said I had worked in a stripless environment. I am know back in an environment with paper strips, and I happen to prefer them. However, while they are useful in helping to refresh short-term memory ("what altitude did I give to him?" or similar) and highly useful when handing an aircraft over to an adjacent controller within throwing distance, what actually is happening is greatly more important that want you wanted to happen. If you had bothered to read the whole of my first post rather than fixating on the first line, you might have noticed that I made some helpful and useful comments. In my second post, I recommended a scanning technique which I doubt you could seriously call into question. You aren't the only OJTI on here, but you sure are rude.
2sheds - you are right that a stripless environment relies on different techniques. In essence, standardisation is key in shared airspace. Arrivals will descend only to X thousand feet, departures will climb to X-1 thousand feet until clear of conflict, etc.
At no point did I state that strips were not useful; I happen to prefer using them, and 2sheds says they are extremely useful when investigating incidents. They are also a useful control aid when used correctly, but what is actually happening is still more important than what you wish was happening...
Going back to noobs original question, the use of strips obviously depends on your discipline and, eventually, your unit. Whatever those happen to be, try to practice the standard techniques for your course/unit and don't underestimate the value of moving your strips at the same time as issuing executive instructions. I've seen someone lose a validation, and someone else fail to validate, principally because their strip movement (this was in TWR) was retrospective and allowed them to fail to protect the runway. But for pity's sake, don't get tunnel vision on your strips! That big television is there for a reason, and it's called radar control, not strip control.