What is Collaborative Annotation?

Annotating a text -- making comments in the margins -- is an intense form of thinking. It is one that encourages looking closely at a text rather than skimming, and slows you down so that you can give focused attention to parts of a text and learn new things about it that don't come as easily when you are reading to grasp an overall argument. This kind of slowing down allows new questions to bubble up, which in turn can lead to making connections you might not do otherwise.

Digital tools allow us to do this kind of annotation with online materials not only as individuals but also alongside others -- a process known as "social annotation" or "collaborative annotation." It allows multiple thinkers to see how each of them is arriving at discussion points through closely reading a text. Reading alongside others as each of you is making your way through a text and and posting your annotations is a different kind of sharing than using a discussion board, where your thoughts are those that you offer after reading, rather than while you are reading.

We'll have one practice annotation project and then three regular projects: one each that relates to the topics in units 2, 3, and 4. The annotations account for 10% of the course grade and are graded on an S/U basis.

Why was the Hypothes.is App Created?

This is a nifty animated video (2 1/2 minutes) that explains the intriguing possibilities that making open annotation on the web operational might allow for. Did you know that when the web was created that an annotation function was built into it so that every web page could be annotated by users? It didn't survive beyond the beta version, but others have been working on bringing the idea back to life.

How does Hypothes.is Work for our class assignments?

The hypothes.is app is embedded within Canvas and allows you to highlight content on a digitized page (just like you would do for a physical book) and to write explanatory comments and questions and answers "in the margin" about the highlighted text. Your "margin" is a small window that opens up that you can type your thoughts into. It is also capable of containing hyperlinks and images, and you can provide bolding and italics for your text, and so forth. It is like a mini multimedia word-processor.

Once you finish and make your comment available for others to view, they can read it and they can also leave comments on it. So our annotation projects will be another form of discussion amongst you in your groups.

:: Here's a 2 minute video describing how to use hypothes.is out on the open web for almost any page you find.

The key actions that you can you can take via hypothes.is are:

highlighting;

annotating;

making page notes;

and replying.

This link goes to a page that describes these actions briefly and contains short video screencasts that allow you to see the process for each of them.

:: hypothes.is types of actions, how to do them, and some reasons why you would do them