Abstract:

Mobile devices, smartphones, phablets and tablets, are widely available. This is a generation of digital natives. We cannot ignore that they are no longer the same students for which the education system was designed traditionally. Studying math is many times a cumbersome task. But this can be changed if the teacher takes advantage of the technology that is currently available.

As we look toward the future of education in the 21st century, the prominence of a robust STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) curriculum is unquestioned. However, low achievement in mathematics education has been an in-creasing problem in the recent years in Portugal. In 2014, the average classification in the 12th grade exam, from 0-20, was of 7.8. Mathematics exams in the 1st cycle, 2nd cycle and 3rd cycle had an excessive percentage of negatives (levels 1 or 2), 36%, 54% and 47%, respectively.

Moreover, according to a recent study on the changing pedagogical landscape the importance of lectures in higher education usually precludes other teaching and learning techniques, such as projects, laboratories, seminars and tutorials. But there are signs that this situation is changing to varying degrees, with the introduction of new pedagogies harvesting the affordances offered by new technologies. Another EU study by the High Level Group on the Modernisation of Higher Education in 2014, indicates that MOOCs and other recent innovations are only one part of a wave of change in higher education, recognizing that blended learning or other forms of on- and off-campus learning are now widespread. However, the lack of clear assistance as to how the higher education system would need to change, in order to accommodate students needs, results in most universities being unwilling to follow high risk strate-gies, either alone or together.
In this paper, we present the design and development of an eBook for STEM teaching and learning of mathematics. Students can use this eBook in the classroom or outside the classroom in a blended learning model to solve problems. When students have difficulties in solving a problem they can watch the resolution of it. In this way, we want to provide the same opportunities to low-achieving students that may struggle to learn the materials covered in class. Students have also access to complex problems that may provide additional stimulation for top performers students. In this way, we can provide a platform that is student-centered and teacher-friendly.

We also describe the workflow for developing this eBook. It was implemented with the free and open standard EPUB 3 that is available for Android and iOS platforms. This specification supports video embedded in the eBook. In this paper it is shown how to take advantage of this feature, making videos available about lectures and problems resolutions, which is especially interesting for learning mathematics. We describe the difficulties found in the integration of mathematics expressions in the MathML description in EPUB 3.

Keywords:

Ebooks, mathematic, m-learning.