Timeline-based authoring tool for e-Textbook: Bringing the “mind-mapped learning model”

This paper describes a novel and interactive tool for teaching and learning (the Time Evolution Learning Tool: TimeBook) that allows teachers and students to generate the e-Textbook or e-book. Recently, there is an increase in the usage of e-books in the pedagogical context, however not many attempts have been made to embed temporal related information into the content generation in e-books. The temporal information can be valuable for curriculum planning and learning, for readers and users may easily contrast and observe the evolution of a concept over a timeline. In this research, we used a "Time Evolution" concept in creating e-books for the school curriculum. A prototype is implemented and we performed a user study to investigate its efficiency in content creation and learning. The results show that this new tool has the potential to enhance teaching and learning approaches.