Episode 21: Social annotation: critically commenting, together
What is social annotation?
Increasing numbers of academic texts, journal articles and policy and government documents are available online. Indeed, many textbooks and open educational resources are also available online and present few barriers such as institutional or system logins. Social annotation of texts may offer possibilities that allow us to collaborate, learn and make meaning no matter where we are located.
But what is social annotation? How is it relevant to educators, students and researchers? How can social annotation connect our thinking together even while we are socially/physically distancing?
In this episode, Jess Wilkinson, a faculty developer at a local college in Ontario, talks about how and why she uses social annotation within her practice as a means of fostering critical engagement, thinking and analysis through critical, social interaction with texts.
Since we often engage with a range of texts on any course, module or programme, whether we are students, educators or researchers, social annotation seems to offer a range of possibilities for deepening understanding of texts through critical dialogue with the text and with each other.
Perhaps more importantly, in this time of #fakenews and questionable 'facts' and takes on facts, there are scientists from health and medicine that use social annotation to highlight, address and rectify skewed and/or twisting of facts in news media. HealthFeedback.org is one such organization.
And of course, the possibilities for civil and social justice are limitless.
Further reading and references
Hypothes.is is one such social annotation tool that Jess discusses that can allow for the aforementioned possibilities. You can also find out more information about social annotation at the two blog posts below:
Annotating software for creating dialogue around published resources by Dr Dina Belluigi
Teaching with Perusall and Social Annotation – Highlights from a Conversation
Scholarship About Hypothesis - this offers a huge list of references of empirical research and scholarship on the affordances and possibilities of using social annotation; the information here is likely transferable to other social annotation tools.
Liquid Margins - this is a community where people discuss collaborative annotation, social annotation and others related to these.