I love playing paladins in many RPG's I play. I just enjoy being that heroic good guy ridding the world of evil like it was my divine quest. However in Skyrim its really hard to play a Paladin or use any beneficial spells in combat. Healing, casting wards, increasing stats are really something you do before or after a right. I never really said to myself, alright lets put down the shield and heal while I am a wisp mother.

So I was thinking, is it possible to make the Z key function like a shout or racial ability? I think that would be a nice touch for defensive spells to be changed to this type of casting so we can easily use them in combat. While having offensive spells staying as weapons you have to wield.

Yes, spells can be set to use voice type activation instead of casting animations.
This way they can be triggered anytime with the shout button.
My mod in sig uses such technique, though for completely different things...

Erm..may I ask how..?

you need some sort of voice activator proggie *you speak out a predefined phrase, programme recognizes it and activates the coresponding button*, i think Thuum Mic works that way, where you can shout Shouts (Fus Ro Dah! hehe) with your mic.

In spell's properties change http://www.creationkit.com/Equip_Type to "voice".