Smart TV app for the Abigail Massey at McAdam Train Station Series
The New Brunswick Community College – Centre for Applied Research in Mobile & Ubiquitous Computing
As part of its research in interconnected user experience, the NBCC Mobile Technology initiative (MFTi) began an exploration of the user interaction capabilities of smart tv apps, particularly in the delivery of educational content. As part of this exploration, MFTi teamed up with New Brunswick author Mark Walma to create a smart tv app version of one of volume 1 of his Abigail Massey at McAdam Train Station Series.
Research topics
eBooks, interconnected user experience, smart tv apps, tvOS, Polymer, React
The latest television app development frameworks are more open to third party app development and offer new user interaction mechanisms, such as voice command and intelligent assistance, which are expected to drive new innovation. We believe these platforms are ideal for educational programming in family-based settings, including K-12, postsecondary, and adult literacy contexts.
The Abigail Massey at McAdam Train Station Series app is the latest result of MFTI's exploration of smart tv app frameworks. This app is a rendering of the first volume of Mark Walma’s series of short stories: Abigail Massey at McAdam Train Station. This app provides both text and optional natural voice narration within an interface that is easy to navigate.
As the stories begin, Abigail Massey is 16 years old, living with her mom and dad in the town of McAdam Junction, a tiny community in the south west corner of the province of New Brunswick in Canada. The year is 1941 and Canada is embroiled in the Allied war effort as World War 2 enters its third year of fighting.
The app also includes information, photos, and video about the author and the historic site that inspired Walma's stories. Please see http://abigailmassey.ca/ for more information about the book series.
This smart tv app project extends the Multi-Channel Content Access Platform (MCAP) project, a five year collaboration between IGT, T4G, First Mobile Education, and NBCC funded by a Government of New Brunswick Industry Innovation Challenge grant. MCAP is concerned broadly about the ability to create and deliver content on numerous Internet and mobile-based user devices through a common platform with integrated Big Data capture and analytics capabilities. MCAP has two research streams: (1) educational and (2) consumer and entertainment. This smart tv app project is exploring ways to extend the range of user interaction and interconnected user experience across multiple devices to deliver educational apps that are both effective and engaging in the context of MCAP.
Cross-platform apps
Several cross-platform implementations of the e-book developed by NBCC–MFTI can be found here:
http://abigail.dev.nbcc.mobi/.
The following screen shots are of the tvOS version of the e-book developed for the Apple TV 4th generation platform.
NBCC Team
- Laura Melles, NBCC Research Technician & Alumna
- William McIver Jr., Ph.D., Principal investigator
Collaborator
- Mark Walma, Author, http://abigailmassey.ca/
Funders
- Government of New Brunswick – Industry Innovation Challenge (Multi-Channel Content Access Platform project)
- National Sciences and Engineering Research Council - Industrial Research Chair for Colleges
Contact
William McIver Jr., Ph.D.
NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Mobile & Ubiquitous Computing
Centre for Applied Research in Mobile & Ubiquitous Computing
New Brunswick Community College
Centre for Applied Research in Mobile & Ubiquitous Computing URL: http://wiki.nbcc.mobi
E-mail: bill.mciver@nbcc.ca
Twitter: @mciverNBCC
Blog: http://mciver.mobi/
New Brunswick Community College URL: http://nbcc.ca
Media inquiries
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The New Brunswick Community College – Centre for Applied Research in Mobile & Ubiquitous Computing is supported by
the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. 
