EL PASO, Texas -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry wants to move away from traditional textbooks and replace them with computer software and technology, and he wants to do it in the next four years.

From taking the weight out of student's backpacks to creating new ways children learn to modernizing schools, the governor and school leaders see a number of benefits.

"I like the computers the most because of the technology and stuff," said Morehead Middle School sixth-grade student Jonathan Acosta.

Acosta said he can learn a lot more from a computer than from a book.

"I can just search more things online than just read a book, I can just research more things," Acosta told KFOX.

"For me, it seems like it's a lot better for the kids," said Morehead Middle School Principal Ross McAlpine.

McAlpine has been an educator for 18 years and embraces the new technology.

"There is a lot more opportunity however when you do sit down with the kids in an electronic format to maybe click on pictures and have some animation and things like that that explain the story a whole lot better," he said. "I think the kids are going to learn different ways of interacting with their texts."

Now the question becomes, how to pay for the new technology? Perry admitted he did not have a cost comparison between textbooks and newer technology. But the director of instructional technology at EPISD said school districts spend so much money on textbooks that the funding could easily be switched.

"They still have that pot of money, whatever it is, but instead of it being spent all on texts, those paper bound textbooks, they are going to start allowing school districts to buy the electronic devices to hold the electronic textbook," said Tim Holt, the director of instructional technology of EPISD.