This presentation covers the recent emergence of online "social reading" and "open annotation" practices. Attendees will be exposed to platforms such as Perusall, Hypothes.is, Lacuna Stories, etc. An interactive annotation activity will provide an experience of social reading, and we'll discuss how this practice supports student engagement and connectivist learning practices in online and blended environments.
This presentation will explore a new trend that is sometimes referred to as "social reading" or "open annotation". This is the practice of creating marginal, open annotations to web assets, usually, though not solely, by highlighting bits of digital text and providing a comment on the selected passage.
Learning outcomes for the presentation include a familiarity with (1) the history and practice of social reading and open annotation, (2) platforms that support open annotation both publicly on the web and privately within learning environments, and (3)theoretical considerations and questions opened up by the practice of social reading.
The presentation will serve both practical and theoretical functions. Practically, many instructors are not familiar with social reading applications like Medium, Perusall, Lacuna Stories, Infinite Ulysses, etc., or even ways to hack other types of applications hosted on platforms like Google Drive or Office 365 that offer inline commenting. We'll explore some of these technologies in an interactive session, and discuss examples from two courses (one online and one blended) taught in recent semesters.
This presentation will also argue that open annotation provides a fertile context for theoretical conversations around connectivist learning practices, especially for the humanities, which have largely been locked out of machine learning advances in the past couple decades. It's hard to assess the act of reading in a way that is meaningful and aids learning, but social reading may point a way ahead.
Finally, we'll gesture toward a set of questions that social reading asks us to consider. For instance, is social reading a mere continuation and progression of the history of reading, or is it a transformation of it? Does forcing reading out into the open change what it means to read altogether? How open should social reading be enacted in the context of online learning environments? What are the ethical concerns with social reading as a pedagogical and social practice?
Finally, we'll gesture toward a set of questions that social reading asks us to consider. For instance, is social reading a mere continuation and progression of the history of reading, or is it a transformation of it? Does forcing reading out into the open change what it means to read altogether? How open should social reading be enacted in the context of online learning environments? What are the ethical concerns with social reading as a pedagogical and social practice?