Interactive e-books on Aakash Tablet

Transcription

1 Interactive e-books on Aakash Tablet M.Tech. Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering Submitted by Prashant Kumar Singh Roll No Under the Guidance of Prof. Deepak B. Phatak Department of Computer Science and Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Bombay Powai, Mumbai, India June 2014

2 Abstract We are living in an age of technology which has made a huge impact in every aspect of our life. The field of education does not remain untouched with its impact. Use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is playing an important role in changing the way of teaching and learning. e-books are nothing but a digitized version of the book and they lack interactive features. To overcome these limitations, there emerged the concept of interactive e-books, which provides a better learning environment to the reader.

3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I wish to express my sincere gratitude and whole hearted thanks to my Guide Prof. Deepak B. Phatak for his guidance and constant encouragement. I am greatly indebted to him for guiding me whenever I faced difficulty regarding the topic. Prashant Kumar Singh M.Tech. Second Year Computer Science and Engineering Department, IIT Bombay i

4 Contents 1 Introduction Learning by e-books: Possible shortcomings Interactivity in e-books Previous Work Interactive e-books epub Versions of epub Structure of an epub e-book PyQt Framework 12 4 epub Authoring Tool 13 5 Future Work 15 6 Conclusion 16 1

5 List of Figures 2.1 Dale s Pyramid An Interactive e-book with embedded video An e-book with text and video supporting text An e-book with in-book multiple choice quiz Directory Structure of epub

6 Chapter 1 Introduction We are living in an era of science and technology. Technology has made a huge impact in every aspect of our daily life. The field of education does not remain untouched with its impact. Use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is playing an important role in changing the way of teaching and learning. Traditional classrooms are becoming smart classrooms. Books have become digital and the concept of e-learning is growing among youths. Use of portable hand-held devices like tablets, smartphones and PDAs (Personal digital assistant) have enabled us to read e-books anywhere and at any time. We don t need to carry heavy books with us. All we need is, a small tablet device and an e-book. EduComp classrooms are the example of smart classrooms in India[?]. Technology has enabled us to take the courses of foreign universities while sitting in our rooms. Effects of technology in the field of education. 1. Development of smart classrooms 2. Online courses (Coursera and NPTEL) 3. Course Management Systems (Moodle) 1.1 Learning by e-books: Possible shortcomings Learning by e-books is a growing trend now-a-days, but it has certain limitations. We can summarize these limitations through following points. 1. There are more chances of distraction while reading e-books, as children may get attracted towards playing games and watching videos stored in the tablet. There must be some provision that engages them to the content of e-book. 3

7 2. According to Cone of Experience (Figure??), verbal symbols provide most abstract experience[?], while the involvement of both verbal and visual symbols like television, provides a better experience. If there is any method that makes it possible for students to listen and watch the course content, then it will be far better to grasp the concept. 3. It is very difficult for the teacher to explain concepts without any illustrative demonstration. If it is possible to get demonstrations along with reading material, it will lead to a better understanding of the course-content. 4

8 Chapter 2 Interactivity in e-books Interactive e-books are traditional e-books with some additional features. These features may be embedded multimedia objects within book or multiple choice quiz at the end of the chapter. Interaction means exchange of instructions (or commands). Traditional e-books are also interactive but with very limited functionalities. We can scroll the pages or we can go to any particular page. All these actions require human intervention. The main aim of making interactive e-books is to harness the facilities of various hand-held devices (e.g. Smartphones and Tablets) which are available in abundance and thus providing a better learning environment to the reader. Learning involves use of sensory organs. The more sensory organs are involved in any task, the better is our experience. Reading involves visual sensory organ while Listening involves use of auditory sensory organ. Demonstration involves use of Auditory as well as Visual sensory organ. 2.1 Previous Work A lot of work has been done to study the effect of interactivity on learning. Aim of all these studies was to investigate the fact Interactivity helps in Learning. Edgar Dale, an American educationist, studied audio visual media and their concreteness in terms of experience. He displayed results in the form of a pyramid[?], having several layers. The lower layer represents most concrete experience, while upper layer represents most abstract experience[?]. According to the diagram Direct Purposeful Experience which is at the bottom of the pyramid gives the best experience as we are directly involved with the condition to be studied. In this case, all sensory organs are involved. Evans and Gibbons [?] performed an experiment on a group of students and concluded that Interactive group (I group) students gained good marks in Transfer test as compared to corresponding Non Interactive group (NI) students. They also found that I group students took relatively less time for attempting quiz. 5

9 Figure 2.1: Dale s Pyramid 6

10 In the Paper Animation as an Aid to Multimedia Learning [?], the author has proposed seven principles for representation of animations so that maximum learning can take place. 2.2 Interactive e-books If a teacher is narrating some abstract concept, it takes a lot of imagination power to grasp the concept. Animations and videos make it possible to visualize the situation. Today, most of the e-books provide the facility of only text and images, but there is no feature of rich media content like audio, video, and interactive demonstrations. Interactive e-books are based on the concept of demonstration. They have the capability of making learning more interesting and enjoyable. The following image shows an interactive e-book that has an embedded video supporting the text. Figure 2.2: An Interactive e-book with embedded video While reading e-books, only visual sensory organ is involved, and thus, students do not feel engaged with the course content. Interactive e-books have an upper hand in this case. Features of interactive e-books: Support for audio content Support for video content Support for SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) Support for in-book quizzes Support for reflowability of content 7

11 Figure 2.3: An e-book with text and video supporting text Figure 2.4: An e-book with in-book multiple choice quiz 8

12 2.3 epub epub is a open standard e-book format developed by International digital publishing forum. File extension for epub is.epub. We can easily create interactive e-books in epub format. epub is the official standard of International digital publishing forum since In 2011, there came another improved version of epub (epub3). epub allows the use of HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. All these can be used for creating interactive epub e-books. HTML5 allows an option for embedding videos. JavaScript can be used to create quizzes Versions of epub The current version of epub is 3, known as epub3. The previous version had certain limitations and was not interactive as epub3. 1. Version The main feature of this version was reflowability of content. 2. Version 3 It is the current version of epub. It came to existence in It has certain additional features as compared to the previous version. The features are listed below. Support for audio and video Support for MathML Support for CSS3 Support for HTML5 Support for SVG It is actually HTML5 that allows integration of multimedia objects in the e-book. seems to be a much accepted version of HTML due to its features. It Structure of an epub e-book Epub is a zip archive that contains various files. It mainly contains a mimetype file and two directories OEPBS and META-INF. Figure 2.5 shows the structure of the archive. 1. mimetype mimetype, also known as Internet media type, is used for identifying a file format over Internet. mimetype has two parts separated by a Forward slash. epub format has application/epub+zip as mimetype. This file must be the first file in the zip archive in uncompressed form. 9

13 2. META-INF Directory This directory contains only single xml file named as container.xml. container.xml gives the path of a file, content.opf, which contains the address and mimetype of all the files contained in OEPBS folder. Figure 2.5: Directory Structure of epub 3. OEPBS Directory This directory contains all the data files like audio, video, images, html, and CSS in respective directories. It also contains two xml files named as content.opf and toc.ncx. content.opf It contains the details like author name, title, date and publication in metadata section. It also gives the address and mimetype of all the files contained in OEPBS directory, inside manifest section. It contains a spine section that tells the order in which the files have to appear in the book. 10

14 toc.ncx It is also a xml file that gives details like book title and author. It contains table of content. 11

15 Chapter 3 PyQt Framework

16 Chapter 4 epub Authoring Tool epubcreate is the authoring tool that can be used for creating epub-3 e-books. Main features of epubcreate 1. Allows WYSIWYG creation of epub books 2. Allows embedding Audio, Video and Animations 3. Supports epub-3 specifications 4. Default text so that even naive users can use 5. 2-click epub Creation

17 Figure 4.1: Figure 4.2: 14

18 Chapter 5 Future Work 15

19 Chapter 6 Conclusion 16