When we assign students to read from an OER text, why not give them the chance to comment in the margins? Why not let these comments inform revision of the OER or become supplemental material? Student social annotation of textbooks is a transformative pedagogy that OER makes possible, and that in turn helps sustain and refine OER. In this presentation, I will show how collaborative annotation in a learning management system can work with two common platforms, Hypothesis and Perusall. I will describe the benefits I have seen in the classroom with my OER text and share a list of ideas for open pedagogy with annotation.
Collaborative annotation brings a number of benefits:
Students support each other in understanding the text by answering each other's questions, suggesting examples, and making connections to other texts or prior knowledge.
They help each other build confidence by commenting on identity-specific reactions to the text, points of shared confusion, and alternate ways to explain or exemplify the textbook concepts.
Collaborative annotation works to disrupt the traditional authority of the textbook and democratize learning. The students' words appear right beside the text for fellow readers. ‚Äã
Collaborative annotation supports a flipped-classroom approach. Instructors can focus class time on student questions and responses and use these to draw students out and extend discussion of the material.
Unlike discussion forums, collaborative annotation centers the text so students will reference it as the discussion evolves.
Once integrated within an LMS such as Canvas, collaborative annotation requires little administrative labor. Giving credit for student work is simple and can even be set up to be automatic, depending on the platform.
Commercial textbooks often don't allow for these benefits because most commercial texts can't be uploaded to annotation platforms or accessed via the open web. Thus, being able to assign collaborative annotation is another advantage of adopting OER.
With an OER text, collaborative annotation can also lead to the benefits of open pedagogy. Not only can student words appear next to the text for their classmates and teacher, but these words can help to improve and add to the text for all future readers. ‚ÄãWhen textbook authors, adapters, and remixers use student comments to help us revise, we are showing students respect. We invite them to participate in shaping the text, and we acknowledge that it is still imperfect or incomplete. This not only helps students feel they have a place in academia, it also brings valuable editorial feedback and, with student permission, new content. Student annotations can suggest more culturally relevant, timely, or interesting examples than a professor might have thought of. As Robin DeRosa has put it, collaborative annotation allows OER texts to become "living organic places."
By attending this session, attendees will be able to:- Describe the benefits of social annotation of OER both for student engagement and learning and for the improvement of the text
- Describe at least three annotation prompts such as constructive feedback, example generation, personal opinion, and questions
- Become familiar with the social annotation platforms Hypothesis and Perusall
- Identify next steps and resources for trying out social annotation with OER in the participant's institutional and technological context
