Social Annotation Tools
Online social annotation tools are digital platforms for making annotations on digital content and shared with a group or community through the internet (Marissa, 2021). Social annotation tools are used in a variety of disciplines to facilitate learning. Kalir and Garcia (2019) identified five common underlying purposes of annotation, namely, “to provide information, to share commentary, to spark conversation, to express power, and to aid learning” (p. 6). Hypothesis and Perusall are two SA platforms known to promote the use of active reading strategies and interactions between course content and students.
Hypothesis
The SA tool, Hypothesis, is a free Google Chrome extension or proxy bookmarklet for other browsers. Marissa (2021) explored the usefulness of the Hypothesis platform for facilitating student learning in a Content-Based Instruction (CBI) classroom. Tedick and Cammarata (2012) defined the CBI pedagogical approach of teaching language as “a curricular and instructional approach in which nonlinguistic content is taught to students through the medium of a language that they are learning as a second, heritage, indigenous, or foreign language” (p. 28).
Through the online social annotation tool, Hypothesis, first-year undergraduate students worked collaboratively on assigned reading documents in a 13-week intensive writing course covering the topic of neoliberalism. Students came from a range of disciplines from the arts and social sciences to engineering. Students worked in groups and responded to questions based on the assigned readings using the Hypothesis platform. Students also had the option to make individual annotations. The groups shared their annotations with other groups who made comments on the annotations with questions or comments of their own.
The study’s findings showed that students learned through collaborative peer learning and active engagement using the Hypothesis platform. The SA tool also helped students manage the academic content used in a CBI classroom. The effective application of Hypothesis supported a positive user experience of the platform.
Perusall
On the other hand, Nel and Marais (2021) used Perusall in a teaching practicum course as an innovative reaction to the challenges posed by COVID-19. Perusall is an online, social annotation platform that was originally designed to promote “high pre-class reading compliance, engagement, and conceptual understanding” (Miller et al., 2018, p. 3). The platform handles different material types, including documents in PDF, e-book format, Word documents, Excel documents, snapshots of web pages, videos, and podcasts. Perusall was designed to be collaborative.
In an exploratory case study, the authors provided an overview of student teachers’ perspectives on the innovative use of Perusall during the “learning from practice” component of a teaching practicum (p. 410). Student teachers, mentor teachers, and teacher educators (course instructors) engaged “in a learning cycle focused on core teaching practices (e.g., explaining/modeling content). As a SA tool, Perusall provided a platform for collaboration and feedback. Teacher educators created reading and video assignments in Perusall. The student teachers asynchronously annotated the assigned reading or video by posting replies to comments or questions. The teacher educators and mentor teachers contributed to conversations asynchronously by providing feedback on comments or questions made by the student teachers.
The study results indicated that student teachers, teacher educators, and mentor teachers actively engaged with “constructive dialogic feedback that assisted student teachers to make crucial adjustments to the core practice of explaining/modeling content” (p. 410). Student teachers demonstrated their knowledge, understanding, and skill of a core teaching practice. Perusall provided the opportunity for timely and constructive feedback aimed at improving student teachers’ teaching practices.
Summary
In summary, the integration of SA tools into learning activities across a range of educational settings helped students engage constructively with course content. Both studies showed that SA tools displayed benefits in terms of enriching student interaction with the assigned readings, assigned videos, and their peers. Please share how you use social annotation tools for teaching and learning.
References
Kalir, J and Garcia, A. (2019). Chapter 1. In Annotation. https://mitpressonpubpub.mitpress.mit.edu/
Marissa, K. L. E. (2021). Using an online social annotation tool in a content-based instruction (CBI) classroom. International Journal of TESOL Studies, 3(2), 5. https://doi.org/10.46451/ijts.2021.06.02
Miller, K., Lukoff, B., King, G. & Mazur, E. (2018). Use of a social annotation platform for preclass reading assignments in a flipped introductory Physics class. Frontiers in Education, 3(8):1–12. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2018.00008
Nel, C., & Marais, E. (2021). Addressing the Wicked Problem of Feedback during the Teaching Practicum. Perspectives in Education, 39(1), 410–426. https://doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i1.25
Tedick, D. J., & Cammarata, L. (2012). Content and language integration in K-12 contexts: Student outcomes, teacher practices, and stakeholder perspectives. Foreign Language Annals, 45(s1). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.2012.01178.x
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Cite this blog: Washington, G. (2022, January 31). Social Annotation Tools
for Collaborative Learning [Blog
post]. Retrieved from https://pedagogybeforetechnology.blogspot.com/
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