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Forget textbooks – too expensive. Instead, swap them for iBooks. That's what Empire High School in Vail, Arizona is doing, the Corvallis Gazette-Times reports. 340 students at Empire High will receive iBooks in lieu of printed textbooks. In fact, the school was 'designed' to be a "textbook-free environment". "We've always been pretty aggressive in use of technology, and we have a history of taking risks,'' said Calvin Baker, school district superintendent. Instead of using computers as a supplement to learning, which has been the strategy employed by a number of school districts, Empire High is taking a somewhat more innovative approach by making laptops the key learning tool. Digital editions of books - eBooks and other learning tools - will be used. Web resources are used extensively, although the school has filtering software to key an eye on what can and cannot come down the ethernet cable. Chat rooms and instant messaging are also monitored, as they might provide 'distractions'. Anti-plagiarism software is also employed by the school. Teachers have welcomed the program, saying that the transition was easier than was first thought. But the books haven't been burnt. There's still a library, and the idea is not to cut books out of the curriculum. Not by a long shot. "We're not trying to eliminate books, said one school spokesperson. "We love books.'' Analysis: Interesting idea, but does that mean students will read more? Or less? Closing of the American mind? Appeasing the point-and-click generation? You decide.
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