Social Annotation for Power Negotiation

Social annotation and role-play are two pedagogical approaches that promote active, student-centred learning. In this paper, we report on how the two approaches were combined in a senior-level university course that aimed to reveal the multiple dimensions and complexity of policy development and decision-making for natural resource management. We begin with a review and analysis of social annotation and role-play as teaching strategies. We then describe their combined implementation in the senior-level course—including reflections from the course instructor and a student in the class—while situating our reflections within the context of an existing framework for critical social annotation. We conclude that when implemented together, and with careful preparation and clear expectations of student conduct, the complementary strengths of social annotation and role play offer unique opportunities to subvert hegemonic models of knowledge production and exchange. The addition of students’ role-played annotations enabled us to redefine whose knowledge and experience are worthy of consideration by giving voice to students as authorities alongside authors of texts and by filling in gaps in the perspectives presented in texts.

Unfolding knowledge co-construction processes through social annotation and online collaborative writing with text mining techniques

Despite the positive claims on the pedagogical use of social annotation and online collaborative writing tools discussed in the literature, most of the findings are derived from interviews or self-reported survey data. Very few studies probed deep into the learning processes and examined students’ digital traces and the artefacts they co-construct. In this study, we employed semantic network analysis techniques to examine how the use of a social annotation tool (Diigo) coupled with an online collaborative writing (Google Docs) affects students’ learning outcomes. The results indicate that the use of Diigo coupled with Google Docs helps enhance student engagement in the collaborative process and that the concept connectivity and quality of the text co-constructed by each group using Diigo coupled with Google Docs is significantly higher than those using Moodle’s forum. In addition, the level of collaboration within a group correlates positively with the number of vertices with high lexical relevancy identified in the semantic network of the text co-constructed by each group. Implications for practice and policy: Undergraduate students can use Diigo coupled with Google Docs to enhance their collaborative work. Course leaders could use Diigo coupled with Google Docs to support learning activities, such as flipped learning or collaborative inquiry learning, in which students are required to engage in close reading and the co-construction of artefacts. Course instructors could consider using semantic measures such as the number of clusters and betweenness centrality to assess the quality of students’ co-constructed artefacts.

Writing between the Lines

This article explores how annotation with digital, social tools can address digital reading challenges while also supporting writing skill development for novices in college literature classrooms. The author analyzes student work and survey responses and shows that social annotation can facilitate closer digital reading and scaffold text-anchored argumentation practices.

The effects of collaboration scripts on the number and quality of student interactions in a social annotation tool

Social Annotation (SA) tools can be used to facilitate active and collaborative learning when students have to study academic texts. However, making these tools available does not ensure students participate in argumentative discussions. Scaffolding students by means of collaborations scripts geared towards collaboration and discussion encourages students to engage in meaningful, high-quality interactions. We conducted an experiment with students (n=59) in a course running at a Dutch university, using the SA tool Perusall. A control group received normal instructions, while an experimental group received scaffolding through collaboration scripts. The results showed a significant increase in the number of responses to fellow students for the experimental group compared to the control group. The quality of the annotations, measured on levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, increased significantly for the experimental group compared to both its baseline measurement and the control group. However, when scaffolding was faded out over subsequent assignments these differences became non-significant. The experimental groups’ increased quality of annotations did not remain over time, suggesting that internalization of the scripts was not achieved.

Social Annotation as Transcontextualization in Graduate Reading Practices

Graduate students must learn to read as professionals who move their reading work into spoken and written discourse. This study borrows Deborah Brandt and Katie Clinton's description of transcontextualizing moves to examine how graduate students use social annotation to develop as readers. Specifically, the study examines graduate reading practices through think-aloud protocols and archived annotations of three readers enrolled in a doctoral literacy seminar. Findings suggest that graduate readers may benefit from opportunities to reflect on how the technologies of annotation contribute to the transcontextualization of their reading across time and space.

Social Annotation, Critical Literacy, and Justice-Directed Educator Learning

This paper/award presentation is shared on behalf of the Marginal Syllabus leadership team having received the 2020 National Technology Leadership Initiative Award, presented by the English Language Arts Teacher Educators group of the National Council of Teachers of English. Annotation is first introduced as a familiar yet often underappreciated practice in literacy education. Second, the social and critical qualities of annotation are briefly reviewed, with attention to the benefits of social annotation for students’ literacy learning and critical social annotation as a means by which literacy teacher educators can foster close reading and collaborative discussion about equity-oriented topics. Third and finally, the Marginal Syllabus is introduced and discussed. The Marginal Syllabus is a project that leverages critical social annotation for public conversation about education equity. Since 2016, the Marginal Syllabus has advocated for and productively advanced justice-directed educator learning and critical literacy education.

Innovare la didattica universitaria con il feedback formativo in itinere

Questo contributo presenta una riprogettazione dell'insegnamento universitario che mira a integrare le strategie di apprendimento sostenute dai media digitali. I tradizionali momenti del processo di insegnamento-apprendimento (lezione, studio, esame), sono stati trasformati attraverso il coinvolgimento in itinere degli studenti per assicurare un feedback formativo lungo tutto lo sviluppo dell'insegnamento. A questo scopo sono state introdotte pratiche di social annotation e di peer- and self-assessment condotte utilizzando due ambienti online: Perusall[1] e Peergrade[2]. Vengono presentate le funzionalità e l'uso in contesto universitario dei due strumenti. Il contributo termina con una ricerca condotta sull'applicazione della riprogettazione proposta ad un insegnamento universitario.[1] Perusall (https://perusall.com/), è un sistema gratuito di social annotation sviluppato da un team di docenti dell'università di Harvard specificatamente progettato per innovare i processi di insegnamento – apprendimento in ambito universitario.[2] Peergrade (https://www.peergrade.io/), è un ambiente digitale per il peer- and self- assessment sviluppato da una società con radici presso la Technical University of Denmark e con consulenti dell'Università Strathclyde.

A Scaffolding Framework for Social Annotation in Online Classes

Web annotation is a genre of information technology that allows a user to annotate information in a shared document and anchor a discussion to the annotated information. When it is used socially in online classes, web annotation can support social reading, group sensemaking, knowledge construction, and community building (Chen, 2019; Kalir et al., 2020, Zhu et.al, 2020).To support several University of Minnesota instructors’ pivot to online teaching , we conducted a study that was focused on engaging undergraduate students in reading and discussing course materials in online classes. Following a co-design approach, we worked closely with instructors to design a generic scaffolding framework for social annotation activities and supported them to implement the framework, with course-specific customizations, in their classes. All participating courses are piloting a web annotation tool named Hypothes.is that is integrated in Canvas and allows students to read and annotate socially. This document describes the scaffolding framework, an important outcome of the study, which can be applied in various online/hybrid class settings.