Paperless classroom becoming a reality

From The Guardian:

They have weighed down satchels, been hurled across classrooms and defaced with lewd graffiti by schoolchildren across the ages. But the humble textbook looks to be going the way of the Walkman – in California at least.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced that pupils will soon only be learning from digital texts, and experts in the UK said yesterday the paperless classroom is becoming a reality here too.

"Today our kids get their information from the internet, downloaded onto their iPods, and in Twitter feeds to their cell phones ... So why are California's public school students still forced to lug around antiquated, heavy, expensive textbooks?" asked the Terminator actor, in his capacity as state governor. The move will substantially reduce the $350m (£216m) California spends on school books and other instructional materials each year. Full story >>

One electronic believer, writing on the TeachPaperless blog, wrote: "I've spent my entire academic career – both as a student and as a teacher – in the humanities and social sciences. The reason I don't need a textbook in English class or in history class is because I can grab anything I need from the internet or the library; the reason I don't need a textbook in teaching a foreign language is because of the vast resources of the web and the resourcefulness of my own experience working with the language." I couldn't have put it better myself. 

COMMENT
I wonder when will someone will produce the first online 'coursebook' for learning English? Online courses such as Englishtown don't fit the bill as they usually consist of traditional materials put online; most publishers' coursebook sites are just a source of supplementary materials; and community sites, such as busuu.com, tend to be weak on learning materials. I'm thinking more of a structured course consisting of web-based resources (news, articles, pictures, audio, video, etc.) with a strong community element (forums, chat, etc.).