EPISD switching to paperless learning

The 2014-2015 school year will take a new approach inside the classroom as it plans to go paperless.

All schools within El Paso Independent School District are working on using electronic textbooks as opposed to the original textbooks.

Tim Holt, the director of instructional technology, said the school district is making a big change for others to follow.

“The district will end up buying Chromebooks so that the students will be able to access those digital textbooks online,” Holt said.

Holt also said EPISD is the first school district in Texas to make the switch to electronic textbooks.

But to start, this change will only be for science classes. Holt said the reason for this is because instead of buying another set of textbooks for 10 or more years, they will restart with the electronic version.

ABC-7 asked Holt about the possibility of students abusing the policy with social media. Holt said teachers are training to avoid these situations.

“We are actually going to be having training for our teachers on classroom management on technology,” Holt said.

The electronic textbooks are to start being used in the classroom no later than October of this year.