HISD rolling out plan to eliminate textbooks in high schools

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- For some high schoolers in Houston, textbooks will soon be a thing of the past.

HISD is one of the first large districts in the country to start replacing the books with digital versions, to be read on laptops supplied by the schools.

The district says it is in the middle of a three year project to give every high school student a computer. This year, students at 11 high schools were issued take-home laptops. In January, students at 20 more high schools will get the computers and by 2016 every high school student in HISD will have one.

HISD says the books will not be just a scanned version of the printed text book. They will include links and multimedia presentations which will further supplement any number of topics.

HISD says its current textbooks are recycled every seven to ten years, and they believe these multimedia books will allow for more in-depth information on current events.

Rice University already has some books for use in college courses and in some advanced placement high school courses. Those books are free at openstaxcollege.org. Researchers there have bveen looking at whether students learn better using this newer technology and whether their grades show improvement.