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Forget about text books......

Nothing is forever!.....as this piece in The NY Times reveals in "As Classrooms Go Digital, Textbooks Are History":

Now it is text books, traditionally used by school students everywhere, which are under challenge, and probably extinction, as teachers and their pupils use online facilities via their laptops.

"At Empire High School in Vail, Ariz., students use computers provided by the school to get their lessons, do their homework and hear podcasts of their teachers’ science lectures.

Down the road, at Cienega High School, students who own laptops can register for “digital sections” of several English, history and science classes. And throughout the district, a Beyond Textbooks initiative encourages teachers to create — and share — lessons that incorporate their own PowerPoint presentations, along with videos and research materials they find by sifting through reliable Internet sites.

Textbooks have not gone the way of the scroll yet, but many educators say that it will not be long before they are replaced by digital versions — or supplanted altogether by lessons assembled from the wealth of free courseware, educational games, videos and projects on the Web."

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