SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - The books in your kids backpack might be missing next year. Utah classrooms will soon be making the switch to online textbooks.
It’s a move The Utah Office of Education says will save schools money. Educators say the thousands saved can then be put toward improving technology available to students in Utah classrooms. The typical math, science, or language arts textbook costs about $80 dollars. The new online version is free, and printing it costs about five bucks.
Tiffany Hall, a curriculum manager at The State Office of Education says one of the greatest advantages of the open-source online textbooks is that they are current. "They are online they can be updated, and vetted by our Utah curriculum experts. College professors and master teachers will be working on their design. We'll be able to make sure that content is accurate, correct, high quality, and up to date. "
The online textbooks will allow students to access them from home, and at school. Hall says the books will be available on iPad and Kindle. Hard copies can be printed for students who need them.
Students will be able to write in them, take notes, and make them their own. Hall says that’s impossible with hardcopy textbooks. “Having a book that they own, can really help students read and comprehend difficult scientific or mathematic or literature content more clearly.”
Before students get their official textbooks, they will be edited to meet the standards of State curriculum and law. But Hall says just because these books are free, doesn’t mean they are of lower quality. "Everything that is on their pages has been written by an expert in the field, and vetted by a panel of experts in the field, not only to make sure that content is correct but also that it is an appropriate curriculum.”
Hall acknowledges it may sound too good to be true, but the textbooks are free to anyone who would like to read them online. They were made available by the non-profit CK-12 Foundation. “The idea behind open source curriculum and content is that every child in the world deserves access to a high quality, accurate, current curriculum and the people who are behind that believe that every child is important, and every child’s education is important, and that is more important than making money.”
To find out more about CK-12 or to read the textbooks you can visit
www.ck12.org 
