The Ministry of Education has launched a pilot program in which 100 elementary schools have been selected to teach math, English and science using digital books. The schools selected already have a computer infrastructure.

The teacher will load the text on a laptop and broadcast it to the students’ network. The ministry wishes to determine just how the students deal with learning material digitally, using 5th and 6th graders in the pilot program. The participating schools have committed to teaching math, English and Science, but only after the appropriate school administrators and teachers completed a 30-hour course on teaching with digital source materials.

Ministry officials cite one of the advantages is that digital books can be customized to the level of a classroom or school, while a regular book cannot.

Education Minister Gideon Saar explains this is part of ongoing efforts to better prepare the nation’s schools for our modern technical society.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)