A school in Arizona, US, has thrown out its paper-based text books and is relying solely on laptops and digital material to teach its pupils.
Empire High School is one of a band of schools which is taking computer technology out of the classroom and into students' bags.
Calvin Baker, chief superintendent of the Vail School district, told BBC World Service programme Go Digital that it has not signalled the total demise of text books. "There are no text books other than a couple on the shelf for teachers to use as resource," he explains.
"We still have a library - we are not anti-books. We have a library and we encourage students to use it, but the primary delivery of instruction materials is being done through the laptops." The school joins many other educational institutions which are embracing technologies, such as iPods and laptops, and trusting students to use them appropriately.
Money routing
Providing all the pupils with Apple iBooks did not dent the school's budget as much as might be expected. But part of that is down to the school having been newly built. The money that was budgeted to buy text books, which was about $500 a student, was spent instead on the laptops. "Our laptops cost is about $800 per pupil. Our net cost is probably $100 to $200 more than if we had used text books," he says.
By giving all the students a laptop computer, the school has done away with computer laboratories too.