The developers will be tasked with creating free, online educational content that can be adapted and customized by teachers — and substituted for textbooks.

Edtech experts at the NASBE conference say testing, teachers and textbooks are being transformed by technology, but technology can be viewed as a barrier to some teachers - and vice versa.

A California nonprofit organization is looking for vendors to create Open Educational Resources, which would lower costs in schools but some say could upend the billion-a-year educational content and textbook industry.