E-ATLAS: A PLATFORM FOR CREATING AND VISUALIZING SCHOOL DIGITAL ATLAS

uma plataforma para criação e visualização de Atlas Digitais Escolares

Abstract

Textbooks have been part of the daily life of Brazilian School Geography since the time of the empire, however, such materials do not include contents of the municipalities, a gap filled by the Municipal School Atlas. Printed atlases have some disadvantages, such as: high cost, mainly to serve a large public in the school network, distribution logistics and outdated content. In the face of these disadvantages, atlases in application format are positioned as good candidates to meet such needs. However, the development of applications involves problems such as the long time required for construction and the need for skilled labor. Thus, the purpose of this article is to present two tools: the e-atlas Maker and the e-atlas Viewer, as well as the usability testing of the e-atlas Maker. The first tool, e-atlas Maker, plays the role of content editor, and the second one, e-atlas Viewer, is an atlas visualization application for mobile phones, which has the catalog of content created by the first tool. The usability test was performed through interviews and guided tasks performed by participants in the e-atlas Maker. The tests showed us promising results such as: 1) All users were able to perform the requested tasks; 2) The average time spent for the transformation of the atlas content into an application was 18.5 minutes, a relatively low value in contrast to the time taken to develop an application, which can be as long as a few months; 3) The participants positively evaluated the features of the editing tool and pointed out that there is potential for use not only by higher education teachers, as in the initial proposal, but also by teachers and students in Basic Education.