E-Textbooks as a Classroom Tool

Digital technology has greatly influenced every aspect of the digital generation’s lives: how they play, how they socialize, how they communicate, and how they learn. As technology is integrated seamlessly into the personal and social aspects of students’ lives, technology further changes their academic environment. This technology force often influences educators to deliver content and assess students’ performance. This article will address a recent, innovative force, e-Textbooks, which should hold a prominent place in the field of education because this technology initiative can change the classroom landscape of how we teach and learn. Although the importance of e-Textbooks in the classroom has increased, limited literature on this technology tool calls for the more discussion—especially in relation to its pedagogical meanings. Hence, the main purpose of this article is to define e-Textbooks, to provide pedagogical meanings of e-Textbooks in the classroom, and to discuss how e-Textbooks address many of the contemporary issues in education, such as differentiated instruction, self-directed learning, and evidence-based (data-driven) teaching. In addition, because the impact of e-Textbooks is varied, this article will discuss the antecedents where e-Textbooks influenced students’ learning outcome significantly in educational contexts. In other words, this article will discuss whether the research found significant learning outcomes in using e-Textbooks.