FETC 2010 News

Indianapolis Public Schools Replace Textbooks with Digital Content

• By Scott Aronowitz
• 01/15/10

In a pilot program announced at FETC 2010 in Orlando, 12 schools in the Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) system will replace traditional textbooks with digital content from Discovery Education. The program also includes curriculum alignment services, professional development, and hardware.

The company's curriculum alignment team analyzed the IPS district pacing guides and chose the digital content that it determined was most appropriate for IPS, including audio and video segments, images, articles, games, and interactive resources.

"Across the country, school systems are learning that textbooks are not the way to go, but that technology is the way to go," said Gene White, superintendent of IPS.  "To date, we are very pleased with this pilot.  The powerful resources from Discovery Education have brought alive our social studies curriculum in a new way, and we look forward to tracking the results of this effort."

As part of the program, the company is also providing IPS with access to its MediaShare content sharing system, which allows teacher collaboration using uploads, file sharing, and distributing both user-created and licensed content. The system also includes access to Discovery Media Servers, which allows users to access content with consuming external bandwidth.

Finally, the pilot program agreement with Discovery offers professional development for technology use in education. "Staff development is an essential part of moving teachers to the next level of instructional delivery," said Willie Giles, IPS deputy superintendent.  "It is critical that our educators know how best to utilize technology in the classroom, and we know the quality professional development [the company provides], combined with the new digital content and educational technologies, will take instruction and academic achievement to the next level."