KY Adopts Online Text
Meg McCaffrey -- School Library Journal, 11/1/2001
Next September, Kentucky's middle and high school students won't be cracking open conventional earth science textbooks. Instead, they'll go online. The Kentucky Department of Education (DOE) recently became one of the first in the nation to adopt an online resource in place of a paperbound textbook.
To meet the state's new earth science curriculum requirements, Kentucky will use bigchalk's ClassMate Earth Science. Kentucky and bigchalk officials believe this marks the first time a state has adopted an entirely online resource in lieu of a core textbook. Diane Culbertson, a library media and technology consultant for the Kentucky DOE, says that the state's textbook reviewers felt that Classmate Earth Science met all of the relevant national and state standards.
Schools in Kentucky are scheduled to begin using ClassMate Earth Science in the 2002–2003 school year. Besides a conventional earth science text, the online resource features graphics, animation, a pop-up glossary, and Web links, including links to bigchalk Library, a research database. A teacher can even check which national and state standards are addressed in each lesson plan. The online text is also cost effective. The cost is "considerably less" than a traditional textbook, at $1,500 a year per school, Culbertson says.
Kentucky isn't the only state where online resources are being considered or used. In Florida, at least two publishers are expected to submit online textbooks for the state to consider. And in Texas, about 100 districts are using an online book from Barrett Kendall Publishing, along with a print version of the book.
