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Monday, June 2, 2014

Digital Textbooks Add Up to Huge Savings for CCISD


League City, TX – By the fall of 2015, every student in the Clear Creek Independent School District in grades 3 – 12 will have their own tablet computer. This 1:1 initiative called “Latitude 2 Learn” opens a new world of learning opportunities for students.

It also enables CCISD to move towards digital textbooks, at a savings for the 2014-2015 school year of $4 Million. The District adopted textbooks and online subscriptions for elementary math and science for grades 6-12. Online subscriptions were also purchased for elementary science. If a textbook was purchased for every student the total cost would have been $6.6 Million. By purchasing digital textbooks and classroom sets of textbooks, the cost was $2.6 Million.

“The instructional resource adoption committee felt it was important to select resources that worked well with our tablets,” explained Debbie Phillips, Executive Director of Curriculum and Instruction. “Fortunately, publishers are recognizing this need and we are very pleased with the quality of the materials we selected. We promised parents that we would lighten the load of our students’ backpacks and going digital when possible will help accomplish that.”

Next fall, CCISD will deploy 11,000 more tablets bringing the total number of devices at work with students and staff to 23,000. The District is also planning more textbook adoptions next year for high school math, K-12 social studies as well as resources for languages other than English. With the ability to buy fewer textbooks and invest in online subscriptions to access the same materials, the savings could add up to millions more. Students can easily access digital textbooks through the CCISD4ME portal created by the CCISD Technology Department.

The initial purchase of the tablet computers was funded through the passage of the May 2013 Bond which totaled $367 Million and included $17 for tablet computers. Teachers are taking advantage of professional learning opportunities during the summer and throughout the school year to learn how to best integrate technology into the classroom.

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