A shift toward digital textbooks in kindergarten through high school education is updating the way students learn.

These textbooks have no paper. They're online. By entering a password on the Internet, teachers, students and parents can access a digital textbook, which combines traditional print content with interactive audio features, animation, tutorials, games and videos.

Demand for digital textbooks is on the rise because, unlike supplemental CD-ROMs publishers often include with textbooks, digital textbooks have the flexibility to adapt to different learning styles, said Marc Nelson, director of user experience for Pearson, a United Kingdom-based company that is one of the world's largest publishers of school textbooks.

Pearson is expanding into digital books, and it has signed a contract to supply 45 percent of California school districts with history textbooks.

With digital books, teachers can tweak the format depending on a student's individual needs. For example, the content can be offered in Spanish. Or, for a student who might be behind, a teacher can create links to texts from earlier grade levels.

Jim Blackwell is an after-school program coordinator for Lamont School District in central California, where Pearson piloted its product in 2005. As a fourth- and fifth-grade teacher at the time, Blackwell used a hybrid method, combining the digital content with workbooks students could write in.

"Essentially what you're doing is you're able to reach all types of learners," Blackwell said. "Reaching them verbally and visually, you're letting them control the material and go at their own pace. They stay engaged at all times."

The digital textbooks piloted in California were limited to social studies and history, but now Pearson is developing textbooks for a math curriculum in Texas schools. They also plan to take the product nationwide. Language arts, history and science books are all in the works for schools across the country.

K-12 textbooks were a $6.2 billion industry in 2006, so for Pearson, a shift from print to digital means good things for the company's operations.

Pearson would not release the price range of the digital textbooks, but they're around the same cost of a print textbook, said Andy Myers, senior vice president of digital development.

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