Press

The 21st Century offers new options for this kind of connecting. A free, open annotation app, Hypothes.is, offers a similar and expanded experience in the margins of digital texts. Readers can collaboratively annotate web-based content, respond to other readers, and add additional resources and links. This digital, social space offers the potential of conversations and insights into the text, which my students started referring to as a “ discussion before the discussion.”

There are other great digital annotation tools out there like Hypothesis (check out this excellent webinar) and Manifold.

Social annotation may be what you are looking for to take make your readings more relevant, interactive, and meaningful for your students. Social annotation is taking the private notes and highlights that we make as a part of our close reading of a text and turning them public. In making the annotations public within our courses, students are able to point out areas where they are confused, make comments and observations, and have conversations and discussions in context. Social annotation tools also present unique opportunities to make connections, provide enhancements and give students some much needed writing and research support.

Engaging students in discussions about global issues can be challenging in the language classroom. Due to time constraints and uncertainty about how to introduce and facilitate discussions about sensitive topics, some instructors may shy away from asking students to think critically about what is happening in the world around them. Whether within the context of online classes during a global pandemic or a more traditional face-to-face classroom, social reading and annotation can be one avenue for inviting students to discuss global issues within the context of authentic online texts.

Hypothes.is is a web-based social annotation tool. It allows you and your students to highlight and comment/annotate/discuss web pages or pdf articles directly on the text. Sort of like digitally writing in the margins. This tool would be extremely useful to get students to complete their reading assignments, think critically about their readings and engage in class discussions.

For four weeks this summer, biostatistics professor Lucy D’Agostino McGowan gathered virtually with a group of other Wake Forest University professors to read the latest research on teaching online, learn how to use digital tools to increase student engagement and debate best practices for inclusive instruction. She annotated articles using Hypothesis, recorded videos on Voice Thread and experimented with Zoom breakout rooms.

Overview of how students can annotate on a Hypothesis PDF / website their instructor has posted in Canvas. This method shows an example that was created using the Canvas-Hypothesis integration. Student does not need to create a Hypothesis account.

The strategies listed above are hopefully a useful starting point for planning hybrid and socially distanced classes this fall. This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list! We encourage you to add your ideas in the comments below or via Hypothesis annotations.

Amidst deliberation about the social value and culture of peer review, annotation is also a key characteristic in emerging open peer review (OPR) processes and the participatory revision of scholarship. Three common OPR practices frequently utilize annotation. The first is open participation, or an invitation for groups to review a manuscript through in-line annotation and forms of commentary. The second is open interaction, with annotation guiding back-and-forth exchanges among authors and reviewers. And the third is post-publication review, with readers commenting atop the published version of scholarship.

This video is a part of a series on collaborative annotation where I will be showing you how to do collaborative annotation in a few of the most popular collaborative annotation apps on the market.