Stepinac has become one of the first high schools in the country to drop all textbooks and replace them with a "digital library". When students started classes on Monday, they were zipping to an app on their tablets or laptops and bad instant access to all 40 texts in the Stepinac curriculum (课程).
Dennis Lauro, director of an information center which provides technical support to public schools in New York, said neither he nor his colleagues were aware of a similar digital effort in a public school setting. "This is the wave of the future." Lauro said. "I'm not surprised that a private school would beat the public schools to it. They have the ability to just do it. There is so much politics involved in public schools, when it comes to a move like that, needing approval from boards and committees."
For Tom Collins, Stepinac's president, the commitment to digital source material was not so difficult a decision. In the past, students' families had to spend up to $ 700 a year on textbooks. This year — after the one-time purchase of a tablet or laptop — families only need to pay $ 150. Using the digital library is almost as easy as opening a new book. A student can instantly lap into a digital book and open a map of Egypt or a speech by President John F. Kennedy. A teacher can show a page from a digital book on a whiteboard at the front of the class or send students a link to a particular math problem with notes added in.
The first few weeks may bring some challenges. Stepinac officials expect some parental discomfort over dropping concrete books. They recognize there may be technical faults at first. And they will have to encourage students to leave space-eating photos and music off their tablets — and to keep their tablets charged.
