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.

Now Comment

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 Documents have been archived and organized for this purpose.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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YiNote

I haven’t provided any additions to my “layering” posts for some time, but I have found another option that works very well. Just a review – layering is my way of describing tools that allow a user to add elements (annotations, highlights, questions, prompts) to existing web pages and videos. My Kindle book about this topic is focused on those services that work with online content without the user having to download and store this content. This capability has important copyright implications. I offer a description of several such services you can review without purchasing the Kindle book.

YiNote is a chrome extension allowing the generation of notes associated with online video. It is free.

Here is the process for using YiNote. After connecting to a video source, you activate YiNote from the menubar. The combination is shown in the following image.

In this image, you see the video on the left and the YiNote window on the right. The WyNote window contains a space for taking and saving a note at the top (red box) and links to notes already taken beneath. The export icon (red box above note links) provides access to the full collection of notes and the tools for exporting these notes. The play icons to the left of note links (first one is enclosed in a red box) will return you to the time stamp associated with that note to replay the video from that point.

One suggestion for setting up YiNote (see settings icon which is the typical gear). Set the option that stops the video as soon as you click in the window to add a note. An advantage of taking notes with this tool instead of on paper or with another digital tool is this easy way of stopping the video so you can concentrate on adding a note. No need to dual task overloading working memory.

The page for exporting notes looks like this. At the top of this window are the icons for several different export options (red box).

The saved content includes a screen capture from the video, your note, and the time stamp. The time stamp is active (red box) and clicking this icon will return you to the video at this point. Note that typical behavior would involve taking a note AFTER you have heard material so the time stamp will get you to the approximate location in the video you want, but you would have to scrub back a bit to review.

yi-note_a32707df-baa1-5e41-a7a7-04acbcc67282-1Download

One of the options for storage is a pdf. I probably wouldn’t store my notes as a pdf, but I included this file here so you can see what stored notes look like. Again, the pdf contains active time stamps that should allow you access to the video.

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Highlights

I am a research-based academic writer. Before I retired, I was a researcher who wrote. In both life phases, I read hundreds of journal articles and had to find ways to organize these documents and some record of my work as a precursor to other activities (submitting a grant, writing an article based on my research, writing a book based on research). In the early days, I highlighted in journals I owned and on xerox copies made from journals borrowed from the library. I took notes from these highlighted originals and organized these note cards in some type of filing system. When I wrote, I would often use the notecards to find key items of information and use the citations on the note cards to find the highlighted copies for details. As anyone who has ever used a card catalog in a library realizes, there is a fundamental flaw in such a system. The cards that reference content kept elsewhere must be filed in a given way (actually card catalogs typically had multiple cards for the same source – topic and author). Still, you had to guess when a card was filed what topic you wanted the card to reflect and reality is that relevance often changes such that a given card might be relevant to a different topic at a later time. This system was what we had but it lacked flexibility and power.

Modern systems make use of technology and offer advantages of greater flexibility and power. Organizational systems are more like a database in that a given source can be categorized in multiple ways. Search offers even greater power as search does not require the assignment of categories at all. Old tech users have certain advantages younger users fail to appreciate. We have lived through many transitions and have a deeper understanding of how existing practices are built on older practices and perhaps how these practices actually work. My favorite example of this is understanding how markup works in HTML (or even word processing), but this is a topic for another time.

Anyway, I think in terms of a workflow in getting from information resources to the written products I generate. Thinking in this fashion has some consequences others may not appreciate. For example, I am not convinced by those who point out to me that reading from actual paper is superior to reading digital content. My response is, but I am not reading. Reading for me is integrated with what I would describe as studying. I don’t just read. I read and highlight and take notes. It is extremely wasteful for me to do these different processes using different media. I want to use highlight and annotating to think about what I read and I want to use the highlights and annotations I create to feed into other activities.

What I describe here as studying might not be something a high school or college student thinks of when they say they have to study, but I use the term on purpose. Finding active ways to think as we read is important to academic reading. Finding ways to generate artifacts that can increase the efficiency of review or other later activities is essential in academic reading. Why read/study in an efficient fashion? Why not use a format that allows both activities since studying is usually necessary unless you reading for enjoyment only?

OK – this into has been mostly for others not seeing the relevance in the type of tool use I am describing. What follows is a description of a new tool I have just purchased appropriate to the study of pdfs of any type. The type of pdf I use this tool to process are typically articles from scholarly journals.

Highlights is a tool I can use both on the desktop and my iPad. There is a free version, but the way I use such tools the paid version is essential ($25 a year). Highlights allows highlighting and annotating pdfs as do many other tools. What is unique and valuable to me is the way the tool stores the highlighted and annotations separately from the highlighted/annotated pdf. If you read Kindle books you may appreciate this separation. So, in both Kindle and Highlights you can collect your additions to the original in a separate file which might be useful in search or in organizing ideas for writing. Think of this as reducing a massive amount of content down to ideas you find more essential.

This image shows a pdf loaded into Highlights. This particular pdf I actually highlighted and annotated using a different tool so if you already highlight pdfs you don’t have to start all over. The very right-hand column is the key here. The content in this column is the highlighted and annotated material from the pdf. In the paid version, I can then offload just this material to a different system. No, you can’t just cut and paste this from the version to accomplish the same thing so you really need the paid version to do what I am describing.

Highlights offers multiple options for exporting this content. I tend to organize collections of such material in an Evernote notebook set up for a given project. When I work on a new project, I just return to the pdfs I want and repeat the process.

Highlights has one other interesting feature some might find useful. It can collect the metadata associated with a pdf and this can be handy for building a reference section (I would do this in a different way) or just keeping track of the source for a notes file.

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Annotate Meet

Denis Shereen has created a chrome extension useful to educators and students who share and discuss certain kinds of content in Google Meet. Shereen demonstrates the use of his extension in a situation involving a teacher explaining how to solve a specific math problem. Annotate Meet is an annotation tool that allows the highlighting, marking, and annotating a static display shared within Meet.

When activated, the Annotate Meet extension adds a palette of tools that appear on top of the shared window [see the palette in the red square]. Tools from this palette are used to apply additional elements to what is displayed and recorded. Students with this extension installed could use the tools in response to a request from the instructor.

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Designing Instruction Using Layering Services

I have been writing about layering services for several years. Layering is my effort to create a general umbrella for multiple services that allow an educator/designer to add elements to existing content with the goal of improving learner understanding and retention. The existing content could be a web page, a video (youtube video), a pdf, or a graphic. The elements could include such things as highlights, notes, arrows, questions, and discussion prompts. While what I write tends to be aimed at educators, these services can also be applied by learners. We are all learners and probably are familiar with highlighting and annotating. Layering expands such additions.

I see layering as a way to think about the design of improved flipped classroom video, online learning and studying, digital literacy and content evaluation, and efforts by educators to make greater use of noncommercial content in place of textbooks.

As I have explored more and more services and as more services have been created over the past several years. I have begun categorizing these services. My existing system appears below. I am most interested in Category 1 because this group of services and content would take advantage of the use of existing online web pages and videos in a way that I see as fair to the content creators (preserving copyright and income opportunities) and a way to develop skills relevant to the use of online content outside of the classroom (digital literacy).

Category 1 – two servers/independent content. My focus in the original edition of this book was focused on this category of content. Examples of this category involve a real time combination of content from a source with added elements layered on this content from a second server. The combination is created when requested in contrast to a stored combination of a source modified in some way. I think the difference I am describing here is important as it addresses a copyright issue and what might be concerns of the authors of the original content. The content creators may intend that their content contain ads or record hits associated with the original web site as a source of income. Content that is captured in some way and then modified to be provided from a different server would not address these concerns. So, in this approach, a request to the server providing the layering service sends a request to the server providing the original content and then adds elements on this content before sending the composite to the learner. The original content creator is credited with hits on the original server and any compensation related to clicks on embedded ads. The layering service may be free or may require payment for the addition of layered elements and other capabilities. Examples of this type of service include: Hypothes.is, InsertLearning, Scrible.

Category 2 – One server, independent purchased content. This category of service provides the opportunity for layering elements and possibly collecting and using information generated by these layered elements making use of commercial content provided by an independent source. As the eventual user, you don’t purchase the original content because the layering service collects the money and then compensates the source. It would be possible to purchase the original content, but then not have access to layering capabilities. The examples I have in mind typically involve digital textbooks. Examples of these layering services include: Glose, Perusall, Kindle/Diigo. I list Kindle in combination with Diigo because many are familiar with Kindle books, but the highlighting and annotating capabilities of a Kindle book can be extended using the capability of Diigo to offload the layered content, organize this content using an outliner, and share this content with others. 

Category 3 – One company offering both a layering capability and content. In this example, a company that provides digital content and  includes layering capabilities that can be used with this content. An example would be Newsela. 

Category 4 – User can upload content to a service providing layering and collaboration capabilities. Examples include Google docs, Edji, Kami, PlayPosit.

Layering Primer

I have written a Primer explaining how layering services can be used to modify existing online content to be more appropriate as an instructional resource. The Primer reviews the elements most commonly available in these services and how they can be applied most productively by both educator and learner. The Primer also includes tutorials for two services appropriate for web pages and two services appropriate for online video. Both paid and free services are considered.

Reviewing this blog for earlier posts tagged with layer identifies a few services should you be interested in descriptions of several other services.

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Social reading is a thing

It happened again. I think I have some unique insight and after playing with this unique insight for a year or two I learn that it is not unique at all. I am working on a revision of my book on the instructional and learning opportunities of what I call “layering”. I have been focused on one implementation of layering which involves the educational repurposing of online content (web pages and video). I noticed that there were tools educators could use to design more effective learning content using such existing resources and I have been trying to identify design guidelines classroom educators can use. Then, I discover there were several companies that have found a way to apply similar techniques by working out agreements allowing learners to interact with the content developed by traditional textbook companies. Somewhere in the process of exploring these new businesses I came across the phrase “social reading” and began to consider what this concept might offer as an educational tactic. I bet most of those who read this post have not encountered this notion of social reading, but this type of awareness is what I consider my job. I should have known social reading was a thing, 

As so often seems the case, social reading has historical roots even if these roots do not involve the use of an activity as an instructional approach. Learned folks would quote favorite passages to each other. This brings to mind those who quote scripture so if passage quotation is considered an early form, social reading goes back a long way. A more recent incarnation might be book clubs and you may have participated in this social activity. Academics often engage in a related activity called journal clubs in which folks gather to discuss a recent journal article all have read. A digital version might be represented by a service such as GoodReads [https://www.goodreads.com/].

The digitization and cloud storage of digital content offers new opportunities for social reading and brings us to the type of thing I now explore. If you are a Kindle user, you may have experienced a very basic component of social reading. If you turn on the feature, the content you read may contain the highlighting (underlining) of the passages most frequently marked by earlier readers of the same book. Amazon offers this feature as a way to allow a type of communication among readers as they share what is most important or interesting. Digitization and cloud storage allow multiple capabilities for annotating and offer the opportunity for both purposeful communication among readers and the designation of just which readers should be involved in this asynchronous communication.

 This is what I think is important. Here is what else this makes me think about. It is the purposeful use of such capabilities that I think offer such great opportunities for thinking and learning – teacher to student, student to student, and student to teacher. I think such opportunities are not widely recognized so I still think my focus has value. I encountered a detailed exploration of social reading dated 2013. I include the citation at the end of this post. I always review the reference section to such works to identify research articles I might read. I found nothing directly related to educational practice. Interestingly, I also found most of the citations identified international authors rather than U.S. scholars. So, there may be some “not invented here” involved in the limited embrace of social reading among the educational authors and researchers I read. 

Social reading is a thing and there are educational opportunities in applying the capabilities of the services and tools for the purpose of developing reading skills and learning from reading. Use the layering tag associated with this post to identify earlier posts on tactics I might now describe as social reading.

Cordón-García, J. A., Alonso-Arévalo, J., Gómez-Díaz, R., & Linder, D. (2013). Social reading: platforms, applications, clouds and tags. Elsevier.

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InsertLearning Public Library

InsertLearning is an online service that allows educators to embellish existing web content to adapt such content for classroom use. I describe InsertLearning in greater detail and provide tutorials elsewhere.

I created the following video to explain how educators can take advantage of InsertLearning lessons that have been made publicly available. If you are looking for online educational content, you might search this library.

For those unfamiliar with InsertLearning and wanting to use these resources, the following image may provide a quick way to see what is provided. The questions appearing in the following image were added to an existing web page using InsertLearning and the combination can then be shared with students. The red rectangle at the lefthand edge of the image shows the InsertLearning tools as they appear when using the service.

The InsertLearning public resources can be accessed directly.

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