Grabe blog addressing education, instructional technology, and other stuff.
Category: Layering
A technique involving the use of a service to add elements of information to web pages or online videos without modifying the source such that both the source and the added comments appear as a composite to the user.
I have not written about layering in some time. I encountered something I was unfamiliar with when reading about how to help students to learn to read with technology. The content I was reading was discussing how to help students understand what the annotation of a digital text might look like and suggested that students be shown examples. One source for such examples was the annotated articles from the Washington Post.
I was unfamiliar with this service, but a search revealed information about the explorations they have conducted and are being conducted by the Post. My example (see below) is from a speech by President Obama because more recent examples (e.g., a piece about Fauci) were not available as I have exceeded my free views. If you have a subscription, search “washington post annotated articles” to find other material. If you explore the linked example, click on highlighted material to view associated comments.
The Washington Post annotates with Genius. The idea is to have a commentator familiar with the issues add these annotations.
Weava is another of those tools attempting to provide an efficient and powerful way to do Internet (and pdf) research. It is a browser extension that allows web pages to be highlighted and annotated, to organize the information that has been determined to be valuable by the user, to export this information, and to collaborate with others in online research. There is a free version of the service and a paid version. I think with a coupon the present rate is $12 a year, but I have also found prices of $7 and $4 a month.
Like many extensions, Weava is activated and deactivated from the browser menubar. This will bring up a side panel that provides access to various features – e.g., the active storage location for highlighted pages. The “House” icon provides access to the service dashboard. Explore the dashboard to become familiar with all program features.
Once activated, Weava will bring up this small panel each time text is selected. The panel shows the active storage folder and allows the selection of the highlight color. Weava recommends using different colors to indicate different types of information.
In the images below, you can see a page with highlighted text.
From the Dashboard, a user can accomplish multiple things. You can share the highlighted material stored in a folder.
You can export the additions you have added to web pages you have read. The content can be exported in multiple formats. You can also generate a citation stored with a link for the annotated pages.
The present pricing structure (beyond the free version) has been reduced during the pandemic.
I have generated multiple posts explaining and offering examples of the online services I describe as allowing educators to design educational resources by layering elements on top of existing online web pages and online videos. This interest also generated a short book on the same topic. A book (Annotation) by Remi Kalir and Antero Garcia has recently been made available and offers a related, but more general perspective and may be of interest to those who have read my content on layering. Both make useful contributions (my opinion) for anyone interested in this topic with my book better suited to K12 educators and Annotations for researchers and anyone wanted a more comprehensive view of the history and potential application of annotation.
As someone who writes about this relatively novel topic, I find it interesting how different individuals came to explore and write about this topic. One immediate commonality is obvious – we both explored the same tool for annotating and sharing comments on online text – Hypothes.is. My own perspective stems from a career long interest in highlighting, notetaking, and adjunct (inserted) questions in assisting students of all ages in learning from text. A second, but indirect, perspective emerged from my reaction to how research on learning from text read from the screen and a traditional book was being presented to educators. I have relied almost exclusively on digital content for many years now and was troubled by the argument that comprehension was superior from traditional books. As I considered the research, I decided both sides may have a valid perspective. I would describe my interest as studying rather than reading (any extended use of text content after the initial reading) and reading on a device offered obvious advantages (storage, search, efficient review, etc.) for anything beyond the initial exposure to content.
I have been thinking about annotation and my perspective of layering and how best to explain these differences. While it seems possible to reach the same end from either perspective, here are some thoughts on efficiency.
The authors of Annotation do mention the potential uses of what they describe as “multimodality”, but seem strongly influenced by hypothes.is and the focus of this tool on text. What can be done with a text-first tool limits perspective – text first heavily focused on the annotation of text with text. Tools that allow layering on video or audio may end up being more important with increasing interest in presenting in this fashion saving class time for other activities.
Layering emphasizes the clarity of a physical separation between content creator and secondary contributors and also the control of visibility of multiple sources. The opportunity of an end user to turn on and off the added elements can be important in satisfying individual differences and in allowing strategic roles that may differ over time.
A focus on hypothes.is limits the clarity in understanding that multiple tools that can be applied by the one adding elements and the intended person targeted for these additions. Depending on service, multiple tools may be available – e.g., text, highlighting, questions, discussion, audio/video. My own writing is focused on the use of such elements to encourage productive processing of the information (text or video) to which the elements have attached. A perspective I like is that existing online content has not necessarily been created as what an educator might describe as a learning resource.
Hypothes.is was the first online service I explored when learning about what I came to describe as a “layering” technology. The descriptive term, layering, I decided to apply was based on the fact that the original content (a web page in the case of Hypothes.is) was not modified when a layering service was used to review and extend that content. However, the composite as experienced by the student is a combination of the content created by the author and the additions contributed by others (e.g., students, teacher). My interest in the benefits of generating and continuing to use these contextualized contributions. By contextualized, I mean that the original and added content is related in space unlike say notes taken in a notebook while viewing the same web content.
Educators and researchers interested in the application of Hypothes.is offer various suggestions for those considering use of the service. Some of these efforts have resulted in a series of videos. The one I am focused on here considers social annotation. Most of us have long annotated as a personal study tool. We highlight and if we read digital content such as ebooks from Amazon we annotate as part of studying or preparing to use notes for writing. In contrast, social annotation involves sharing annotations with other students and possibly with a teacher. The author of the video talks about “making thinking visible” which I like. More traditionally, I would describe the likely benefits of social annotation as generative processing.
The layering options in Hypothes.is include highlighting and note-taking. In a social situation, these additions can be used in many different ways. An educator can highlight for emphasis, add comments to extend the information provided by the original author, and ask questions. Students can answer such questions, ask questions of peers or the teacher, and make personal observations. The annotated material can make thinking visible as a source of modeling or as a type of “show your work” others can use to evaluate your understanding.
Look for these ideas and suggestions for application in this video.
Here is a video I created some time ago to describe the basics of using hypothes.is.
I have been writing about online services that allow content elements (e.g., highlighting, notes) to be layered on existing online pages and videos without modifying the content as intended by the original author. The options for both layering web pages and online videos have grown since I began commenting on this type of service. Because I mostly write for educators, there comes a point at which it might be useful to rank or at least differentiate these services. For example, what is the best free service? What is the best service no matter the cost?
My early interest in this category of tools was encouraged by an exploration of Hypothes.is. I think I remember the origins of this service promoting “annotate the web” with a general emphasis on general interaction focused on the content the web made available. Fair or not, I think companies, even open source efforts, can become limited by their early vision. At this point, this service seems a general application with relevance to education, but not necessarily designed specifically for education. The tool options – highlight and annotate – seem limited in comparison say to the tool set available from a similar service – Insert Learning. So, for example, while Hypothes.is.’s annotate function could be used to ask questions or encourage discussion, Insert Learning has tools specific to annotation, questions, and discussion. The Insert Learning tools are flexible (e.g., a multiple choice tool) and can send the responses from individual students back to a dashboard from which the educator can see who has responded and who has not and assign grades or easily keep track of participation. This differentiation of tools and integrated data collection system is educationally very useful. Of course, Insert Learning is a paid service.
In some ways, I still see Hypothes.is as driving developments in this field. It is a service with roots in a research community and I think this base is important for productive developments. These roots come with what might seem limitations to some as a noncommercial approach has limits on the resources necessary for rapid innovation. For example, the Hypothes.is blog describes the Indiana University social annotation project and interest in using learning analytics to investigate annotation.
I find myself working and writing at the intersection of research and practice and I can appreciate both of the services I have described here from these perspectives.
I have not generated a post about layering for some time. I found a description of DocDrop and thought it provided a great example of how the concept of layering could be applied to the study of video.
DocDrop is a service that allows the simultaneous display of a YouTube video and the associated text normally displayed as closed captions.
This dual display alone may have value, but it is the integration of DocDrop and Hypothes.is that offers the opportunity for educators and learners I see as having the greatest potential. Hypothes.is was the first layering system I explored and the first I used in a class. It allows the personal or collaborative annotation (highlighting, notes) of text content. I see the value here as a way to improve the processing of text for learning and retention.
Now, the following is a demonstration of the possibility of combining of DocDrop and Hypothes.is.
If this video interests you, I was not focused in the demo on explaining Hypothes.is. The following video was generated a couple of years ago to explain the use of Hypothes.is.
NowComment is a free online service allowing multiple students to annotate and comment on content. NowComment has been around for some time and is now maintained by tech advocate and writing advocate Paul Allison. Unlike the way I use layering in my own self-defined technical sense, NowComment does not create a composite based on and continuing to draw on content from the server used by the content creator, but requires the host to first upload the content serving as the focus for activities or to create content on the Upload site. By my understanding, this would require copyright or fair use applications. If there is a unique advantage to NowComment in comparison to some of the layering tools I have already described, it would be the opportunity to engage others in threaded discussions. The annotations can not only be responses to a question or original comments, but reactions to previous comments provided by others. This threaded capability is what would differentiate NowComment from a collaborative use of a service such as Google docs which also allows comments.
Like Hypothes.is, NowComment could be either an opportunity for public discussions or private discussions in response to a given source. By public, I mean that any other user using could potentially see the document and existing comments you make available. Public groups have even been formed to address topics group members may have as a shared interest – e.g., climate change, poverty. Other NowComment users have posted content with some annotations that may be applicable to new users. Documents have been archived and organized for this purpose. In private mode, you can control who you invite to view and respond. An educator may want to limit access to students in a given class. Both options could be useful.
The content offered in NowComment could be text, images, or through the use of embed scripts a video as might be added from YouTube. A useful capability is the potential to differentiate when comments can be added and when comments can be viewed. This is a capability I have wanted for some of my own classes. When you want to grade comments, you really want students to post their comments based on their understanding of the content and not from their ability to integrate the comments provided by students who have already posted. In a discussion board, I controlled this using a feature that required moderation before visibility, but scheduling visibility by date would make the control of visibility much easier.
The following is not intended as a tutorial, but more to give you the basics and explain some of the core features. Once you have joined, the key capabilities of NowComment are available from the banner (the blue strip at the top). Upload documents (from the banner) brings up the following allowing content to be uploaded. The “copy and paste” option is the easiest and allows a general way to add content you can copy from something on your own computer.
The display allowing interaction is divided into two panels. You select content (a phrase or a paragraph from the pane on the left) and then comment on the right. As you can see, comments can be added to comments created an opportunity for interaction among participants.
Content can also be highlighted. See my page for my more general take on layering. Another important capability from the area in the upper left-hand corner of the browser display allows other functions such as providing invitations.
The invitation process (individuals or a group you establish) allows you to control access (public or private).
The group option would allow a teacher to create a group once and then use this label repeatedly rather than add all student addresses for each project.
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