eTextbooks: Challenges to Pedagogy, Law, and Policy

In the world of print, textbooks were the most important tools for dictating what and how student learn in schools. The introduction of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), however, gave rise to eTextbooks – a multi-modal, hardware mediated, and connectable, curriculum material. Indeed, the emergence of eTextbook creates fascinating opportunities for teaching and learning, but at the same time, it poses new challenges for both educational practices and policy making by revolutionizing the traditional pedagogical practices, classroom culture and the textbook publishing industry. These new challenges require rethinking and reexamining the appropriateness of the institutional and legal norms which govern the use and authorship of textbooks. This paper identifies the new challenges introduced by eTextbooks, and offers some insights on the policy and legal implications.