As the 2014-2015 academic year begins, teachers, school leaders, parents and students should be aware they can access free, interactive digital textbooks through the Georgia Department of Education’s website.

“As we implement the new standards, we know teachers and parents need high-quality resources,” State School Superintendent John Barge said. “We developed these textbooks and other resources for middle and high school virtual school courses, and the students who have used them have been very successful. Much of their success can be attributed to these exceptional resources in the hands of our teachers.”

The textbooks, which can be accessed by visiting gavirtuallearning.org/Resources, are currently available for middle and high school courses. They cover an array of content areas in language arts, math, science, social studies, CTAE electives and several world languages (Spanish, German, French, Latin, Chinese and Japanese). Textbooks range from courses such as coordinate algebra, analytic geometry and biology to electives such as web design, agriculture, and healthcare science.

Many of the textbooks feature supplemental or interactive content, including study guides, discussion questions, games, audio recordings and quizzes. When learning about function families in a coordinate algebra textbook, students can hover over vocabulary words to view their definitions. In a Fundamentals of Web Design CTAE course, students can take interactive quizzes as they learn HTML.

These resources are aligned to the Common Core Georgia Performance Standards and are free for use by schools, districts or individuals. To access the textbooks and a list of subjects available, visit gavirtuallearning.org/Resources, then visit the “click here” link under the “shared” heading. Visit gavirtuallearning.org to access more online learning resources from the Georgia Department of Education.