Interactive logbook: the development of an application to enhance and facilitate collaborative working within groups in higher education

This paper describes the development of Interactive Logbook, an application designed primarily for University students, to facilitate and enhance individual and collaborative learning in higher education. Interactive Logbook exploits the Tablet PC architecture to incorporate wireless communication, natural handwriting input, context awareness and provides a seamless integration of tools for learning, collaboration, and time management. The development follows closely the socio-cognitive engineering methodology (Sharples et al., 2002) for the human-centred design of educational learning technology. In addition, usability evaluation techniques such as card-sorting, heuristic evaluations and field studies have been used to ensure the system interface is intuitive, uncluttered and easy to use.