As teachers, administrators, parents and students continue to argue about how best to incorporate digital technology into the classroom, Apple (AAPL) strode into the center of the debate Thursday with a promise to transform the classroom the same way it changed music with iTunes and the iPod.

Apple’s move to offer interactive digital textbooks is the culmination of a longtime dream of co-founder Steve Jobs, who once predicted the iPad would render print textbooks obsolete, shaking up an $8 billion industry and giving Apple the chance to reinvent book publishing.

Its plan is embodied in three apps: A new version of Apple’s iBooks lets students instantly access interactive digital textbooks through their mobile device. A second app called iBooks Author turns anyone with a basic knowledge of Apple tools into an iPad book publisher, offering layouts that can be jazzed up with interactive 3-D models, photos and videos. Then there’s iTunes U, an app that lets teachers and students connect in various ways, including through posted reading lists and streamed video of lectures.

Many analysts applauded Apple’s effort, saying the new iBook 2 and its companion tools will help reorder the academic landscape.

“We are in the early days of what should be a fabulously chaotic time,” said Shel Waggener, associate vice chancellor for information technology at UC Berkeley and a leading advocate of digital learning. “We’ll see the power and strength of Silicon Valley and its passion for innovation as things move from paper to electronic delivery of information.”

Beyond that, Waggener said, Apple is empowering students to share content in real time, turning a classroom lesson into a social-networking experience.

Intense collaboration is under way among academics, technologists and publishers trying to enrich learning with the latest mobile devices. National pilot projects by leading universities seek money-saving models to create and distribute digital course materials that students will find more engaging.

Apple is not the only company to envision interactive textbooks. Competitors like Adobe (ADBE) and Google (GOOG) are making inroads, and Amazon.com is the world’s largest seller of e-books. But Apple’s long history of putting technology into schools, along with its track record in transforming industries such as music and mobile phones, may help it set a standard that will be hard for competitors to match.

Programs in the Bay Area give high school kids tech tools that could redefine the traditional classroom with cloud-based, multimedia instruction. Apple’s announcement is sure to supercharge those efforts, which include a successful two-year iPad learning project at San Jose’s Archbishop Mitty High School.

“The iPad’s not some magic pill, but if you have good teachers who understand pedagogy, they’re a great bonus for the students,” said Mitty Principal Tim Brosnan, who plans to expand the program to the entire student body next fall. “By giving students 24/7 access to anything on the Internet and things like instant email communication with the teacher even when they’re not in school, these tools completely expand the world of the classroom beyond the four walls.”

Even with an educational discount, the 200 iPads currently at Mitty cost each student nearly $500, which is folded into their tuition fees. Brosnan said that while e-learning’s cost of admission may be steep, students will come out ahead over the long term as expensive paper textbooks are gradually replaced by digital content.

Only 6 percent of textbook sales will be digital this year, but some experts estimate that number will jump to more than 50 percent by 2020. Brosnan points out that a Pearson Education biology book that costs the school $80 in its print version can be bought on iBooks in a digital version that costs $14.95.

But the cost of Apple devices raises a larger question: Will the move toward e-learning exacerbate the learning gap that already exists between public and private schools, as well as between schools in poor and wealthy regions of the country?

Esau Herrera, board president of the Alum Rock Union School District in East San Jose, where leased iPads are being used by hundreds of elementary students, said that despite the “heavy costs up front, we’ll see huge savings down the road. Every school district is cutting in this recession, but every school district is also spending money, so it’s really a question of priorities.”

Herrera said the advancement students have already made this year in areas like English fluency thanks to iPad apps makes the cost of the program worth every penny. “Our kids may think they’re playing and having fun on these tools,” he said, “but we know they’re learning.”

Apple’s new offerings were announced in an event at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, and are the company’s first major product launch since Steve Jobs’ death last year from pancreatic cancer. All three applications will be free and immediately available. High school e-textbooks will be sold for less than $15 in a partnership with three of the major U.S. textbook publishers.

Apple officials said the gee-whiz interactive textbooks appearing soon on the iPad could ease the difficulty educators have in engaging students. “I don’t think there’s ever been a textbook that made it this easy to be a good student,” said Roger Rosner, Apple’s vice president of productivity applications.

Even though many school officials have long realized that digital was the wave of the future, there have been numerous barriers, including lack of a standardized platform. And in California textbooks must be approved by the state or school districts, adding yet another hurdle. Although an iPad pilot project at Palo Alto’s Gunn High School is a hit with students, the experiment requires changing lesson plans and managing a room full of students with glowing computer screens in front of them.

Despite the challenges, would the district’s technology director like to expand the program to the whole school?

“Absolutely I would,” said Ann Dunkin, adding: “If I had a limitless budget.”

Staff writer Jeremy C. Owens and The Associated Press contributed to this report. Contact Patrick May at 408-920-5689. Follow him at Twitter.com/patmaymerc.