Not by the Book

By Continued

But the greatest limitation on the use of multimedia is that many schools don't have the infrastructure to support it, McClintock says. "Learning materials are something that all children need to have dependable access to," he says.

Indeed, a lack of equipment is one of several difficulties that the Laredo district has encountered in making the switch to multimedia core texts.

When the district adopted Science 2000 in 1994, it provided one computer, a television, a laserdisc player, and a link between the television and the laserdisc player for every 7th and 8th grade science classroom. The cost was roughly equal to what the district would have paid for new science textbooks for all...