Minimizing interaction mechanics to improve active reading on tablet textbooks
Abstract: By highlighting, annotating and reorganizing material, students engage in active reading. Fundamental to learning, active reading is limited by emerging tablet textbooks designed for browsing rather than manipulating content. This intensifies when studying multimedia. Video, for example, is transient, and pausing, rewinding, and replaying easily distracts from studying. To overcome these challenges, we introduce novel active reading tools aimed to support multimedia learning in tablet textbooks. Our approach is manifest in SMART Note, a tablet active reading system that provides learners with more efficient highlighting and video annotation, and enhanced study tools. In a comparative study with a state-of-the-art interactive e-book, SMART Note minimized interaction mechanics and improved efficiency on active reading tasks. Our work maximizes support for active reading in the context of the pervasive use of tablet environments in education.