Web collaboration and critical thinking: Hypothes.is and annotation 2.0

Back to report on the intersection of pedagogy & technology -fun!
Props to Bonnie Stewart for turning me on to this cool technology...

I'm not sure whether to populate this post with abundant links, videos & screenshots, or just to wax rhapsodic about collaborative annotation in general...maybe I'll start with the second and insert the down at the bottom - scroll down if at some point you want to see what some of this stuff actually looks like!

So what is collaborative annotation? Well, if you're not a writing teacher, one might ask: "what is annotation."

The answer is - many things, but in a nutshell, it is the notes that one makes on a text.   So simple - but as many of us know, can be such a powerful tool.



Over time, I've come to rely on annotation as one of the most powerful tools in my critical thinking arsenal.  For many students, reading is, or can be, a strange act: passive, receptive, or even slightly hostile.  Or so we think.  But at the same time, as we read, so much work is going on inside our brains!   Are we creating a visual or auditory image of a story?  Are we struggling to understand, trying to make sense of a difficult sentence or new word?  In a difficult text, are we constantly making (and revising) guesses and predictions about what the heck this is about (as we absorb new information)?  Are we connecting it to what we've already learned, or to experiences we've had?  Other concepts in class?  Are we flooded with emotions - excitement, engagement, dread, anger, the joy of recognition of our own experiences in someone else's words?

How can we capture all of this activity?  And what about those times when we want to talk back?  What about when we want to argue, debate or agree with what we're reading?

One of the most powerful things that can happen as students engage with a text is that students (to paraphrase a great thinker) make a text speak to them in some way.   And what's the key that will open this door?  When a student starts asking questions of a text.  When a student starts asking questions, they are initiating a process of inquiry with a text that they initiate - which means that they have found a point of entry - something that is relevant to them - some answer they want to find.

However, students are often doing all of this powerful work in their minds, invisibly.  Often they mistake their own questions or confusion for failure.   What they don't know is that this silent process is the very essence of academic work.   So the beauty of annotation is that they capture some of this internal voice and make that conversation see-able.  If they can capture the questions created by their reading, often they have the basis of inquiry that will underlie their writing and analysis for the next month of the unit.   And if they are lost of confused, annotation captures and specifies that - an articulated question often helps them figure out exactly what it is they need to figure out!

So - I am pro-annotation.  I model it, I assess it, and teach students explicitly how to do it and use it in the writing process.  So imagine my excitement when I learned about such a thing as "social reading" or "collaborative annotation"

These terms simply mean that, using the web, multiple people annotate one document - often by highlighting a specific piece of text - and you can see and respond to other students annotations.  For me as a teacher I immediately grasped the power of this...not only is my critical thinking process on display, I can see how other students responded.  And I can ask questions.  And answer questions.  And engage with other students over specific ideas brought up in the texts.  COOL.  (I've also done a low tech version of this in my classroom by passing out a printed poem and having students annotate, exchange, read, and reply to the poem!)

So what tech is out there to help with this?   All right...I'm a bit lazy, so I found one that worked for me and forsook all others.  I know there is a program called "crocodocs" where people log in and can annotate an uploaded document, but I've never actually used it.   I adopted Google Docs for this purpose - delightfully, their program can handle 20+ users all commenting on a single document at a time - and display updates in real time.  I would simply upload a poem, share the link, teach students how to make comments, and set them free (I can set it with login required or not in the share settings).  It's honestly been some of my favorite teaching moments - watching THEM learn from each other, respond to questions, point out moments in an article or poem that seem important to them...with even the most quiet or unconfident kids participating.  I LOVE it (see below for an example of a Google Docs conversation.  This is one that I jumped in on).

So....here is another technology to check out.  It's called "hypothes.is" and it's slightly different - as far as I can see, it's designed for annotating websites.  I uploaded a Chrome extension onto my browser, created a login and I was off and running.  Basically, what this means is that I can go to a website and turn on hypothes.is - and I can annotate the text on any site, keep it private or make it public, and share a link with folks to let them see my annotations - and reply,  if they have a login.   Definitely wider (&wilder!) than my annotations on one document, I'm still trying to think through the ramifications.  I can imagine using it in any group where you really want to sink your teeth into a webpage or document - as long as you all have a hypothes.is login and know which page you 'll be looking at.  I am definitely intrigued by the idea that now there could be this extra layer of annotations on any webpage - and that communities (MOOCs? Church groups? book clubs?) can share them. (Click here to watch my video tour of Hypothes.is!)

I was going to say that this in some ways seems like just shades of the "comments" section.   But there is something somewhat intimate about annotating.  If you are debating, I suppose, you are forced to focus on a single point at a time, and that launches a discussion, instead of something disjointed that jumps from topic to topic covered in an article.  If you are recording a personal response to specific words or sentences, you are allowing other readers to jump into your own private experience of reading - where does YOUR mind go?  What memories or emotions are jogged? Why or how does this resonate for you?   The conversation can suddenly go so much deeper, and readers can engage in such a more personal, conversational way than throwing a comment into the raging river of a general discussion.

Here's some further info & links if you want to learn more about these technologies:

Hypothesis main page with introductory video & sign up.
From the hypothesis blog: "10 Ways to Annotate with Students" (excellent overview of the different ways teachers might use annotation to foster different kinds of thinking - including having students annotate with images as a response to what they are reading - swoon!)

If you decide to sign up, check out my annotations on goals, objectives  & curriculum planning on a UConn assessment-focused website that we read for my intro to instructional design course (very helpful).  (unfortunately, I found hypothesis to be quite buggy on a mobile device - come on, web designers!  get hip!)

Follow Jeremy Dean, creator, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dr_jdean

Example of a classroom conversation created using annotation (via the comment feature) on an article uploaded to Google Docs.  You can see that I jumped in, but often I do just let students talk to each other and see where it goes.