Monday, January 06, 2020

Annotate with Me.

I've pointed to the Connected Learning #clmooc group in many of my blog articles. That's where I first learned about web annotation, where you read an article or view a video, then highlight passages that resonate with you and comment on them in the margins of the document.

Here are two recent examples.

In December 2019 the #Marginal Syllabus group posted an article titled "Miles Morales: Spider-Man and imagining the cannon for racial justice".  In this article "Mario Worlds and Cody Miller argue that to disrupt racial hierarchies we must purposefully disrupt the canon of literature." You can join in at this link.

Then, last week, Terry Elliott, a professor from Western Kentucky, sent me an invitation to read his blog, and join in viewing and annotating a video by Alison McDowell, titled "What will Ed Reform 2.0 Bring? Data. Data. Data." .

Terry wrote,  "It is an understatement to say that her blog, Wrench in the Gears: A Skeptical Parent’s Thoughts on Digital Curriculum, is a revelation."

Terry posted the video in Vialogues at this link. You can scroll through the comments on his blog, or join in the annotation yourself.

What first drew my interest was Alison's use of LittleSis maps to show networks of people, companies and investors who she was identifying and writing about in her blog articles. I shared two in this Tweet.

Then I started to dig into Alison's blog to build a better understanding of what she is writing about. I found that she has one of the same problems I have with my own blog. There are many, many articles and most are long, with many embedded links. It's difficult for people to go through all of this, or to figure what we're focusing on.   So I went back to 2016 when she first started writing to see if I could learn the root purpose of her efforts. Here's one article that I read.

I won't try to describe these two annotations, but will only urge you to spend some time reading both, and building your own understanding of the content, and the power of group annotation.

Alison introduced herself to me with this Tweet.


I don't really know much about what Alison is writing about or have an expertise about the issues Mario Worlds and Cody Miller are describing.

What my role has been for the past 25 years is an intermediary who recognizes significant information, puts it in a web library, then encourages other people to spend time reading, reflecting, forming their own opinions, then sharing the information with an even larger group of people.

That's what I hope I've done today. 

3-18-2022 update - I just learned that Vialogues is shutting down in May 2022 - I've put my five videos on the Internet Archive, so you can still find them.  All you need to do is copy the link into the Web Archive home page.   I've been featured in other videos. Here's one by Terry Elliott that I put in the Web Archive. 
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2 comments:

  1. Alison7:41 AM

    I think perhaps this will help you understand the issues at hand. Understanding that in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, predictive analytics, risk-profiling and managing dissent will be a central focus of transnational global capital interests. https://wrenchinthegears.com/2017/04/14/automated-education-chasing-skills-debt-social-control/

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  2. Tutor Mentor Connections9:54 AM

    Thanks Alison for coming onto my blog and adding a link to another article on your blog.

    I see the problem you're describing and hope that by sharing links to your site on my blog and via my Tweets and FB posts I can help draw more readers to the information you share.

    Can you point to some articles or other sites where a solution / better alternative is being described?

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