Tag: layering

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 Documents have been archived and organized for this purpose.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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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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Improving the educational value of online content

I have been waiting to generate this post until I felt certain educators would be providing at least some instruction at a distance this Fall. I have decided Fall instruction will not be like the Fall of 2019 and tools for teaching online are worth considering.

I understand that educators have been overwhelmed by suggestions for teaching at a distance. I want to limit what I add to one concept. I call this concept “layering” (explained here) which is my way of suggesting that educators should learn how to take existing online content (web pages and video) and add elements that guide the learner. Informational rich content is not necessarily prepared as learning resources. Adding elements such as questions and annotations to remember something already learned can improve understanding and application. Help the learner process the information to increase understanding and retention.

I am making some assumptions about the tools educators already have mastered. I assume that educators have learned to use a tool for managing learning and reaching students (a course management system of some type – Google classroom, SeeSaw) and video communication tools (Zoom, Google Meet). I would then suggest educators spend time with the type of tool I suggest here. The tools I suggest are versatile so that the investment of time educators and students commit translates into frequent applications. It makes sense to spend time on such tools before exploring other tools that might be used now and then.

There are several different layering tools and you need to learn a different one for video and for web pages. Here are my two suggestions.

InsertLearning – web page annotation

MoocNote – online video

For more on layering benefits and layering services

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Teach highlighting and notetaking skills

Technology offers learners some study skill opportunities often not available until recently. A vast literature investigating highlighting and notetaking exists, but few K-12 educators have been trained to help their students learn to use these study skills effectively. While some may offer advice on taking notes, highlighting has been largely ignored because marking up content intended to be used in the future by other students was forbidden. The use of digital content eliminates this problem, but the opportunities of this content in digital form have been largely ignored.

My own familiarity with highlighting and notetaking go back to the late 1970s and 1980s. It is my impression that these study strategies were heavily investigated during that time frame because of the interest in generative strategies. Interest seemed to wane, but I sense a return of some of these ideas.

I recommend two recent sources:

Miyatsu, Toshiya, Khuyen Nguyen, and Mark A. McDaniel. (2018). Five Popular Study Strategies: Their Pitfalls and Optimal Implementations. Perspectives on Psychological Science 13, 3, 390-407.

Surma, T., Camp, G. & Kirschner, P. (translated) Less is more: Highlighting as learning strategy. [https://3starlearningexperiences.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/less-is-more-highlighting-as-learning-strategy/]

Miyatsu and colleagues make an interesting point about study strategy research. They suggest that researchers have focused on developing new study techniques, but these techniques have been largely ignored. Miyatsu recommends that greater attention be focused on study strategies that are used and how these strategies might be optimized.

Highlighting and annotating (simplified notetaking) fit well with my interest in opportunities for the application of online layering opportunities.

Here is a quick perspective on the highlighting and notetaking research.

The potential benefits of both techniques are approached as potentially resulting from generative processing (activities while reading/listening) and external storage (improvement of review or studying). Of course, these are interrelated as better highlighting and notetaking should improve later review (I will make one comment on whether this relationship still holds at a later point). A quick summary might be that a) the benefit of notetaking appears to be in review and b) the benefit of highlighting appears to be in the generative act of highlighting. I cannot offer an explanation of why these strategies appear to work in different ways. 

One further comment related to my reference to layering is that highlighting and notetaking can be provided rather than generated by students. Providing highlights and annotations can benefit review and may be a way to teach a better generative approach. One of the findings of these more recent reviews of the literature is that K-12 students do not benefit from highlighting opportunities while college students do. This could be because younger students have not practiced this technique and when provided the opportunity do not highlight in an effective way. They do benefit when important content is highlighted for them.

With notetaking more generative strategies (paraphrasing vs verbatim) improves the benefits of the note taking process, but verbatim notes are more effective for external storage (review). I think this could possibly be improved by use of apps that allow notetaking while recording presentations. The notes taken within such apps are timestamped allowing review of the original recorded content when the notes seem confusing. Students using this approach could also just enter a marker, eg., ???, in notes when confused rather than overload working memory and use this marker to return to the spot in the recorded notes for more careful thought when studying. The notes could even be improved later using this same approach. 

If you don’t have access to a college library, you may be unable to read the Myatsu paper, but the second reference is online and offers some useful analysis.

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Information converted to a learning resource

As a retired academic, I must admit that I miss doing research. There is a certain agency, a sense of control, when you are investigating problems that you believe need solving. What I have decided I get in return is more time to think. Research tends to involve you in the demands for generating money and counting publication frequency which I have decided cut into important time for thinking.

So, I have been thinking about teaching and learning and how these processes fit together. It might seem that I as an educational psychologist should have been thinking about this before and to some extent I did, but I  now have time to spend on the big picture. I am trying to build for myself and hopefully others a way to understand how teaching and learning fit together. All explanations and the related applications do not work at least in optimizing the experience for learners. Any teaching approach likely works to some degree. We have the capacity to make meaning from pretty much any life experience as long as we make some effort to think about the experience. The problem with this reality is that those on the teaching side can come to believe any approach that is in vogue works great. This is where the way learning works should be used to test such beliefs.

One approach I have been exploring as a way to communicate about teaching and learning focuses on the resources learners access. I describe what I see as an important difference in contrasting information and learning resources. I am attempting to differentiate these resources and to connect insights I think are there to how learners might benefit from what they can find or are assigned online.

I have found it helpful to interpret information in the way historians use the concept of primary source. Historians work with such primary sources, photos, news accounts, diaries, interviews, etc., to build a model of history. The methods resulting in the conversion folks who teach history describe as the “historians craft”. These are rules of thumb for avoiding bias in seeing what is really there and for combining what is really there with their existing knowledge to understand and share. The tactics they apply allow historians to make meaning from information.

I believe cognitive psychologists think about learning in a similar way because learners do pretty much the same thing. They take inputs (informal experiences in the world and formal experiences in the classroom) and act on these inputs to build personal models. Educators cannot do this for learners, but they can engage learners with external activities that potentially change important internal behaviors. The cognitive psychologists help at this point because they offer insights into what these important internal activities are – e.g., activating existing knowledge, connecting important elements from external experiences with this activated knowledge (models of how the world works), and testing whether these connections make sense and have been accomplished (most call this metacomprehension).

Educators might not think in these terms, but they have tactics for encouraging these important internal learner behaviors. They might encourage learners to consider a common experience or provide a common experience in order to encourage background activation. They might ask questions to encourage processing of inputs. Questions of a different type might be used to help learners self-test their understanding.

What teachers do during their time with students might be thought of as encouraging productive processing of carefully selected information, but it probably also should be thought of as developing productive, self-imposed learning tactics. I believe this role is often overlooked and I use the infrequent effort educators make to help students learn to study as an example. As adults independent learners, we learn best when we perform the same cognitive tactics and we may even use similar external behaviors. We may highlight to identify key ideas. We may take notes to process information. If our efforts at notetaking, maybe even in the margins of what we read, are unsatisfactory, we may realize that we really don’t understand and respond by rereading or seeking a different perspective from a different source or a more knowledgeable person.

So, I believe it helpful to attempt to understand the learning processes that are important and to consider how we as learners or we as educators might encourage these processes WHEN NECESSARY. This “when necessary” thing is very important. These add-on activities can be required when a learner does not need them to do important cognitive things (activate knowledge, identify important ideas, connect important ideas with the activated knowledge, etc.) and then the add-ons become busy work that just wastes processing capacity. It is always important to understand that learning is an individual thing and it is performed by the learner and not the external helper no matter how motivated this external person is to help.

To make this thinking I have been doing useful to myself and hopefully to others, I have attempted to identify a body of information (content) and to then explore what external tactics might be applied independently or encouraged by educators to facilitate learning of this information. I describe the combination of content and tactics as a learning resource. The body of information I have decided to focus on is online information in the form of web pages or video. I believe educators are using such content in place of traditional textbooks more frequently and this shift requires educators to do some things that were not as necessary when assigning content from textbooks. I have decided to focus on online tools that can be added to this online content to encourage effective cognitive processes. This focus has resulted in a Primer to provide an explanation of specific tactics and the rationale for these tactics and online tutorials for tools that learners can use and educators can assign to encourage these tactics. The Primer costs a few bucks and the online tutorials are free. If any of this interests you, I would suggest you take a look at the video tutorials and these tools seem to offer possibilities for your classroom to then put down your $3 and purchase the Primer.

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More on layering services

Why is it I see an emerging category of educational technology few others seem to notice? Maybe they are looking in the wrong place or I only notice what matches my particular view of the world.

The emerging category I have noticed I describe as “layering services”. These are online services that allow educators/designers to add annotations of various types (notes, questions, highlights) to existing online content (web pages, video) and direct learners to the composite of the annotations and the original material. I see this as a way to provide the learners that are the responsibility of these educators/designers with educational content in comparison to information (see my previous post). I have written about this category of service in great detail and I see the category growing rapidly.

I have provided some examples with tutorials online and I should now add new examples I have discovered (Timeline.ly, Wakelet, ReClipped).

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