I have a Sophomore and Senior in public schools here in Austin, Texas, and they still use textbooks; however, they are issuing laptops to underclassmen and moving towards online content.
I think there are some advantages to moving away from traditional printed textbooks including:
- Lightweight - having the entire year's worth of books on a tablet is significantly less weight than a bunch of text books. Especially, when you read about kids developing back problems from lugging heavy backpacks.
- Less storage - when the school year is over, school's don't need a huge amount of space to store textbooks.
- Potentially less expensive - printing books can get expensive when you throw in four-color pictures.
- Prepares students for the future - As an IT guy, I cannot tell you the last time I read a physical book for work-related stuff. PDFs and Web sites make up the bulk of everything I read for work.