For all the innovative thinkers and grand new ideas, the world of academia is not known for its progressiveness. Most educational institutions, K – 16, still work on the September to June agrarian community model. Most schools still report students' progress using letter grades, and rely on paper and pencil (#2 only please) assessments to monitor students' achievements. And, yes, most schools still utilize the printed textbook, the descendent of the ancient scroll, as the primary teaching resource.

The average high school students often lugs around as much as 20 pounds in textbook weight (1). In addition to causing back injuries, these weighty tomes contain information that at best has not been updated since publication. All too often these texts contain outdated and inaccurate information.

In Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Neil Postman rejects the claim that technologies are themselves neutral. And so, it would seem, with etexts. Some people view them as the Holy Grail of instruction, as though they are capable of salvaging a long suffering educational system. To others, they are merely the latest gadget upon which to waste our ever-dwindling education dollars. While we may have been educated using traditional textbooks (and have done fairly well in our humble opinions) today's education is about today's children and tomorrow's citizens and leaders.

Imagine if you will the students entering kindergarten in September 2011. For as long as they can recall there have been iPads, smart phones, and other easily mobile devices which have allowed them quick and simple access to the world. They have listened and watched as grandparents a continent away have Skyped them a bedtime story. They have used the latest apps to learn handwriting, simple math, and even foreign languages. For them, the world of YouTube is a place to find Lego or Barbie videos. They have even created and produced their own digital stories using apps such as ToonDo to share with the world. Before setting foot in an educational institution, these children have been intuitively harnessing the power of digital media and devices to soar.

For the next 16 years, however, their academic experiences will likely disallow such incredible growth. Their academic potential will be constrained by the ages-old technology of the printed text. Digital texts, often referred to as etexts, ebooks, or digibooks, must be brought into the academic world today to teach today’s children for tomorrow!

Etexts exponentially increase students' learning potential. Information contained within the text can be updated as needed. No longer will an elementary textbook claim that Pluto is a planet years after it had been reclassified as a planetoid. Knowledge is an ever-changing and evolving asset; our students need to have that access to that type of knowledge.

One caveat concerns the definition of an etext. An etext is not simply a digital copy of a paper text. Rather, it is a robust, fully interactive technology tool. It should allow for the digital exchange between students and students, students and teachers, and even students and experts from around the globe of all text-related activities such as discussion, highlighting, notes, summarizing, creating, and problem solving.

If we return to those same kindergarten students of September 2011, we may see a few lucky ones—ones whose schools have already adapted and integrated digital texts. We may see students who are able to learn at their own individual levels; at a school where there is differentiation of instruction and limitless, worldwide resources. As the students learn both inside and outside of the classroom they will be able to easily connect with global peers and content experts to collaborate and share, to learn and grown, to create.

Isn’t this something we want for our students? Of course it is. So yes, the time has come to move from print to etexts.

1 California State Board of Education, "Textbook Weight in California: Analysis and Recommendations," California Department of Education, May 2004, id: cib-cfir-may04item02.

One only has to look around to realize how much technology permeates our lives, from electronic banking to online shopping to filing taxes electronically to programming and watching television. Consider the lives of our students: they wake up to the music on their iPod, text their friends to meet at lunch, check their phone messages at their locker, search the web for the movie schedules to plan an outing, and buy their tickets online.

The world today uses technology to increase efficiency and communication. Warschauer and Matuchniak of the University of California, Irvine note that S. Harnad "calls this phenomena of computer communication 'a fourth revolution in the means of production of knowledge' following the previous revolutions of language, writing and print" (1). It is argued that schools are not taking advantage of technology to motivate and increase academic achievement. While students today may be digitally savvy, they are not necessarily digitally literate. The tendency in schools today is for kids to be told to "power down" in school while they "power up" outside of school.

The role of technology continues to increase in business and society. Researchers look at how education utilizes technology to prepare students for the world beyond high school. Research shows that the first digital divide, traditionally thought of as access to technology, is over despite the perception of many in leadership. Kids today find a way to access a YouTube video or an email account if they want. Research also shows there is a growing second digital divide that should concern education. This new digital divide is about how the technology is used, for learning or entertainment. This may increase the achievement gap in our schools.

As early as 2002, students, whom Project Tomorrow in its 2010 report later described as "free agent learners" (2) recognized this gap and insisted that policymakers take the digital divide seriously (3). These students recognized that not all students have the skills to navigate the technology effectively and all students would benefit from instruction on how to use it better. They acknowledge that students with better technology skills and knowledge of educational websites have a significant advantage over other students (3). Students come to school with a different set of skills and expectations because of their use of technology outside of school. The authors of a Pew Institute study conclude: "The type of technological environment that surrounds a teen shapes their online life" (4).

Just as the workplace is using technology to save money, so too is education. Increasingly, colleges are using online courses to help meet demand. Professors are using Skype for virtual office hours. Registration, grades, and communication are all done using technology. The world increasingly is becoming paperless. K – 12 education must prepare students for this world.

Digital textbooks continue to evolve in this rapidly changing world of technology. What started out as PDF copies of the print text have turned into highly interactive electronic resources. Because they are electronic, they can be updated quickly and efficiently. There is no need for printing, warehousing, and shipping. Content information is delivered to students in a variety of ways, such as through visuals (using pictures and video clips embedded with the text), audio (through features that read the text aloud to students with difficulty reading), or the traditional print, to meet different learning styles.

Digital textbooks provide additional resources, such as relevant primary source documents and interactive maps, games, and vocabulary cards, to support the content for both the student and the teacher. This allows teachers to reinforce and reteach content using the variety of resources available. Students can highlight and make notes as they read which can be saved and referenced later. Used correctly these resources, and others which can be accessed via a publisher website, allow teachers to personalize the learning for their students.

Using these interactive digital textbooks meets kids where they are today. This format is more engaging and motivating for students. The more students become active learners, the more knowledge they acquire. The more knowledge they acquire, the more opportunity they have to be successful. As the world beyond high school becomes increasingly digital, so too must the classroom if we are to prepare our students to become productive adults. As Carly Fiorina is quoted in Friedman's book The World is Flat, ". . . the last 25 years were a warm-up for an era in which technology will literally transform every aspect of business, life, and society" (5).

1 M. Warschauer & T. Matuchniak, "New Technology and Digital Worlds: Analyzing Evidence of Equity in Access, Use, and Outcomes," Review of Research in Education 34 (2010): 179–225, doi: 10.3102/0091732X09349791.

2 Project Tomorrow, Speak Up Reports, "Creating Our Future: Students Speak Up About Creating Their Vision for 21st Century Learning," 2010.

3 S. Arafeh et al., "The Digital Disconnect: The Widening Gap between Internet–savvy Students and Their Schools," Pew Internet & American Life Project (2002).

4 A. Lenhart, M. Madden, and P. Hitlin, 2005, "Teens and Technology: Youth are Leading the Transition to a Fully Wired and Mobile Nation," Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2005 (202-419-4500).

5 T. L. Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005).

Today's textbooks represent a system of learning and knowledge transfer that is centuries old and sorely outpaced by modern technologies. Digital textbook providers are changing the textbook paradigm but, of course, adoption is the key. Do we dare take a new direction with the authorship and delivery of educational resources? We cannot afford not to.

Traditional textbooks are often expensive, rigid, and difficult to update. It is not unusual for these texts to be out of date before they go to the book binder, leaving many students learning from outdated materials that cannot be customized, individualized, or leveraged for multimedia.

Take, for example, an article in the San Francisco Chronicle on June 29, 2011, reporting that at a local school four blue recycle bins were found filled with hundreds of unused workbooks that ranged in price from $10 retail to about $24 each. The books were supplemental English and math workbooks that came in a set with textbooks supplied by publishers. The school principal explained that districts or schools typically sign multi-year contracts with textbook publishers, which provide one set of textbooks and supplemental workbooks for every student each year. Sometimes, teachers choose not to use the student workbooks. In other cases, schools might switch midstream to a newer textbook that more closely aligns to the questions on state standardized tests, and the result is that many of the workbooks go unused.

This is just one example of how schools deal with outdated learning materials but I assure you similar examples exist throughout the country. How can we, in good conscience, accept this waste when school districts are faced with ever-tightening budgets? How much longer can we let our students suffer the consequences of outdated resources?

CK-12 was founded in 2007 with the mission of reducing textbook costs worldwide. The fact that schools across the world are facing these textbook dilemmas fuels the CK-12 team's commitment to eradicate such waste and to provide high-quality, standards-aligned open-source FlexBooks.

Quality, of course, is a critical part of the textbook equation. Unlike the rigidity of traditional textbooks, the flexibility of digital textbooks allows teachers to easily update content for accuracy and relevancy. For example, a U.S. history teacher using digital learning resources can easily update content related to September 11th with information covering the 2011 capture of Osama Bin Laden.

Perhaps the most compelling argument for digital textbooks is that they allow teachers to create scaffolded learning tools for students. We know that one text does not fit all. With digital textbooks, the materials can be adapted as needed by teachers to enhance the learning experience for students.

CK-12 and Leadership Public Schools [LPS], a network of four urban charter schools in the Bay Area, have forged a compelling digital textbook partnership that is making a measurable difference for students in need. Together, we created customized College Access Readers featuring embedded literacy supports to help bridge the achievement gap for an urban student population whose majority enter 9th grade reading between 2nd- and 6th-grade levels with math skills at the same levels.

LPS is using Algebra College Access Readers and FlexMath, an online Algebra support and numeracy remediation approach developed by LPS in partnership with CK-12 Foundation. LPS Richmond has also integrated immediate-response data with clickers.

Recent semester exams showed 92% at or above grade level, triple their performance last year and four times that of neighboring schools. This progress is particularly notable in a school in one of the highest poverty communities in California, Richmond's Iron Triangle.

So yes, the time for digital textbooks is here. The supply of quality digital textbooks is growing, as is the evidence of their positive impact. Now school administrators need to ensure their schools have the technology infrastructure and the appropriate teacher training in place to achieve widespread digital textbook adoption. Our teachers and students cannot afford for us to wait any longer.

Teachers and students have had a love-hate relationship with the history textbook for as long as there have been history textbooks to read (or, more to the point, to assign for reading). This really hit home for me in 2008, at the end of one of the most frustrating school years ever. My students had turned hating the textbook into an art, and I was determined to figure out why and find some solutions that would work in my class.

At the end of that year, I gave my students a survey, asking them about the book, the class, what worked, and what didn’t. Some of the results were surprising, most were not. On the one hand, 66% of my students said that, taken as a whole, reading the textbook was helpful in understanding/being successful in the class. On the other hand, only 40% said that they read at least 80% of the time (and only 15% said that they read all the assignments). Across the board, students said that they would be significantly more likely to read if the reading were shorter and more engaging.

Thus began my team's efforts to find alternatives to the book. Our first goal was to find readings that would be more targeted to the goals we have for our class. A second, and still very important goal, was to make sure that it did not involve any additional cost to the students. Turning to the internet was the most obvious choice.

The result of our efforts was the creation of e-learning folios for each unit. Students are given "big picture questions" for the unit, followed by a series of thematic "learning modules" that students read for class and lists of key terms and ideas that accompany each of them. The learning modules are comprised of a series of links to different online sources, including online digital textbooks, digital museums, primary source readings, and online videos and lessons.

Since implementing our new curriculum, we have noticed some positive results. First, our readings are more targeted. We have been able to really help our students focus on what they need to know from the reading, and we can supplement and enrich that in class. The result is that our students' reading load has been reduced by about 10%.

Secondly, our readings are richer. Rather than just giving students the textbook version of, for example, the New Deal, we have been able to incorporate more readings from historians and have encouraged them to explore a wider array of sources as part of their reading.

Third, our students are encouraged to engage in more online assignments and collaboration. Using the computer to learn about history is more of the norm in our classes, rather than a novelty. Students are encouraged to use that information in new ways that engage "digital natives." Finally, our students have continued to perform. While our foray into the digital world was met, at first, with consternation from parents, in the three years that we have been using this system, our students have actually performed better on the AP US history exam than they had in the past.

With all of that said, there are still some limitations that need to be addressed. The first, and most obvious, limitation is access. While almost all of the students in my school have reliable internet access, there are still some that rely on access at school or for whom we have to provide printed copies of some articles. With nearly 29% of American households lacking reliable access to the internet (according to the Department of Commerce's Digital Nation report), the "digital divide" is still a real obstacle, and until states begin to provide students with access to computers and the internet, digital learning will never truly be the norm.

Second, we lose out on "found time" for studying. Students have lost the ability to use their time on the bus or in the bleachers after practice unless they have wireless access. One odd result has been the number of students who ask to check out a textbook instead. Some students simply prefer a hard copy. In fact, one of the most surprising complaints I have received about our system is that it is too costly. When I have asked students to elaborate on this, it has turned out that many of my students actually print out all of our readings so they can highlight and take notes.

Finally, the downside of our efforts to "pare down" the readings and provide more targeted sources is that the students have lost the sense of narrative that the textbooks provide. No textbook can be everything to all classes, and this is even more true with online sources, which tend to have fewer resources at their disposal. We have yet to find the one "magic bullet" source that has everything we need, and while it is great to have to flexibility to incorporate elements from a number of sources, we have had to work diligently to find reputable sources and redouble our efforts to show how all of the disparate elements they are reading fit together.

In short, the use of online sources as an alternative to traditional textbooks provides myriad opportunities to engage students and enrich the curriculum in the history classroom. However, solving the "textbook problem" can create its own set of problems that teachers will still have to address.

The textbook. From Frances Fitzgerald to James W. Loewen, critics of history textbooks have—quite rightly—decried these tomes as bland and boring. No one reads a textbook for pleasure. Weighty, humorless, and fact-filled, textbooks lack the qualities that engage readers of non-fiction: drama, vivid character portraits, and a distinctive vision and authorial voice. Usually written by teams of authors, even the best textbooks tend to be dull, tedious, and lifeless. The textbook, we are told repeatedly, is a boring and overwhelming conglomeration of facts, preoccupied with politics, war, and diplomacy.

Textbook writers are not unaware of these criticisms. All the major U.S. history texts seek to balance "traditional" themes with social, economic, and cultural developments. All strive to bring history to life with capsule biographies, vivid quotations, and engaging anecdotes. All seek to redress the stereotypes, distortions, and omissions that marred earlier textbooks. Almost all include a wealth of visual materials, charts, maps, paintings, political cartoons, and photographs.

Why are textbooks—even those written by the most renowned historians—mind-numbing? An obsession with coverage is a major problem. No longer focused exclusively on political and diplomatic history, textbooks have embraced cultural, economic, ethnic, religious, social, urban, and women's history. The result, however, is not a work of rich detail and surprising connections; rather, it is encyclopedia-like: an overwhelming compilation of disconnected facts.

Yet, paradoxically, for all their wealth of encyclopedic detail textbooks are also quite superficial. Almost every specific topic is treated in a cursory, sketchy, or shallow manner. Students can acquire surface facts without getting much of a topic's full complexity. For that, a student would do better to turn to Wikipedia.

The biggest problem, however, is that textbooks are not well aligned with pedagogical practice. No self-respecting instructor teaches from a textbook. For most teachers, the history textbook is first and foremost a reference work, providing background and detail. The heart of an effective history course lies in a mixture of lecture and classroom activities, involving primary sources, debates, role-playing exercises, discussion, and inquiry. Successful history teaching involves formulating and responding to questions about the past and connecting past and present. Those aren't functions served by current textbooks.

It is in face-to-face interaction with their students that the most successful teachers explore history's crises and controversies as well as the more subtle yet equally profound historical processes (such as urbanization or shifts in women's roles and status) that transform peoples' lives over time. Although a textbook can suggest some of history's struggles, drama, and ambiguities, that function is best performed by other resources and other pedagogical methods. A textbook is no substitute for primary source documents or historic audio and visual resources or secondary sources in teaching historical thinking—nor should it be.

The essential function of a textbook in a middle school, high school or freshman-level history class is to familiarize students with basic facts essential to understanding the past, provide a framework for conceptualizing society's evolution, and preparing students for quizzes and tests. Yet, ironically, textbooks are not especially good at any of those functions, since most are conceived as overarching, comprehensive narratives.

What is the alternative? In creating the Digital History website, I drew on my experience teaching the U.S. history survey course for over twenty years (typically to 592 students a semester). Based on that experience, I concluded that it would be best if a textbook were:

• Succinct. Information should be based on the principle of "need to know."
• Aligned with state standards. One of my challenges was to figure out how best to synthesize the topics and events that teachers need to cover.
• Customizable. Not every teacher covers identical topics in the same order. Instructors should be able to easily pick and choose the topics that they wish to cover.
• Rich in anecdotes. What, I asked myself, are the stories that my own students have most responded to? These are the incidents and examples that I needed to include.
• Free. Given the scarcity of resources, focus expenditures on the kinds of instructional materials that will instill a genuine passion for the past: biographies and autobiographies, secondary works of history, novels, maps, films, and music.

Above all, I became convinced that an online textbook should not seek to replicate an entire course. That is an instructor's job—which is why the Digital History website includes a wealth of classroom handouts, primary sources, inquiry-based "eXplorations," and teaching resources including charts, images, maps, and copyright free music designed to empower teachers to incorporate active learning into their classroom.

To my amazement and delight, the Digital History website is used by more than 100,000 distinct users a week. This suggests to me that many instructors are seeking a new kind of balance. A free online textbook will present the "big picture" and serve as a reference work, providing students with essential background, answers to student questions, and a framework for understanding. Meanwhile, teachers will focus on what they do best: interaction, inquiry, and inspiration.