Comments on: Commenting Evolves

By: clay burell

clay burell — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 10:54:56 +0000

Diigo already does something similar: highlights and annotates sections of websites. As a teacher, I use it all the time. And I teach it to my kids as a research tool. Better than Google Notebook by far.

By: Terry Elliott

Terry Elliott — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 13:16:19 +0000

Ooops, I forgot to mention that I am very grateful for the extra brain that your site and the comments section has become for me. Thanks, and now I must be off to look at the new trove open to me: Sophie, offline social networks, Seb Mary, if:book, and Gam3r 7heory.

By: Colin Purrington

Colin Purrington — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 13:15:38 +0000

That is so cool.

By: Terry Elliott

Terry Elliott — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 13:03:34 +0000

Tom’s point is well taken if we apply it to the largest population of users, but it is mistaken when applied to the smaller subset–academic, peer-reviewed literature. One of my main goals at the university is to help the most hidebound tech laggards accept the inevitablity and efficacy of digital tools. Sophie looks to be one that will mesh with weblogs, webpages, and wikis. If its promise pans out, then I can only imagine the kind of leverage it will have in a program that carefully adopts it. Hell, professors may actually have something to teach their students!

By: elearning for music » Blog Archive » writing online

elearning for music » Blog Archive » writing online — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 08:10:09 +0000

[...] There are many persuasive reasons for writing online (particularly within the context of a learning programme) and here’s another one: inline, online comments. Blogged about here. And the example is from Future of the Book. The main difference I see between this (which is an extension of Word Press) and the usual blog comment option is that comments are targeted to specific paragraphs. This would be so cool in offering feedback to an essay – your comments go on the same stage as the writing and sit exactly alongside the relevant bit. So often, feedback to some student writing is 2 steps removed from the actual piece of work, therefore it lacks context. [...]

By: what is nailchipper? » Blog Archive » Holy of Holies Commenting System

what is nailchipper? » Blog Archive » Holy of Holies Commenting System — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 00:18:23 +0000

[...] At Future of the Book we recently hacked WordPress to allow comments to tie to specific paragraphs in the text and I think it turned out pretty well. Other people seem to think so [1][2][3]. Withing just few sleepless nights we had functional system that was good enough to launch Mitchell Stephens’ new project called “The Holy of Holies: On the Constituents of Emptiness”. [...]

By: Alan

Alan — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 23:34:18 +0000

FYI I saw this done back in 2000 in a paper by Australian educator Greg Webb using a software called “pageseeder” — it still lives at

http://ps.pageseeder.com/ps/jg/papers/teachers/teachers.pshtml

By: jfca

jfca — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 22:12:23 +0000

A similar tool that works in conjunction with many social bookmarking services is Diigo (http://www.diigo.com/). It allows you to bookmark and tag a page while at the same time highlight and annotate sections of the text. The annotations can be made private or public. Worth taking a look at.

By: David Jakes

David Jakes — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 21:20:32 +0000

This could elevate the amount of blog taffy exponentially….

By: Floyd Geasland

Floyd Geasland — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 20:49:16 +0000

I think this is fascinating. I picked this up off of Weblogg-ed blog and I think this would make reading non-fiction more productive, especially if there was some sort of marker, so that when the author reviewed the comments and responded or explained why he chose to leave it that way, you would get a notice to read his commentary.
As far as getting this type of thing into secondary schools if I was the company running the website I would make a point of sending a representative to some of the yearly conventions for Languager Arts/ Social Studies / Technology teachers and doing presentations where they actually log in, comment, and read comments, especially if the author was also on line. That would convince them of its value and those people would be the most likely to not only use the technology but share it back home as well.
Blogging and websites are good but doing it with someone who can help standing nearby is what will convince more people to try it out.

By: Barry Pace

Barry Pace — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 19:41:20 +0000

Much of this technology could be best utilized in secondary schools, but since secondary teachers are the most silo’d of educators; it could still be a long time before it truly catches on.

It is hard for veteran or beginning teachers to learn from each other when the classroom door stays shut and the small square window covered.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 18:24:39 +0000

I am amazed at the large number of teachers who have been taught to use Microsoft Word but don’t know a document can contain pop-up comments as well as embedded audio clips. Some are unaware of including active hyperlinks and most have never seen track changes for reviewing/editing. They are usually astounded when they hear these capabilities were built in more than 10 years ago. To most of these teachers, Word is meant to format how print looks on a page. Homework is exchanged using paper.

A large proportion of our teacher population thinks of writing as part of a paper exchange process, a process where “hypermedia” makes no sense.

Passing electronic documents from home to school and school to home seems to bump up against an age barrier in many schools. Some new teachers just do it. Most veteran teachers need to LEARN to do it and often wrestle with issues of file type, bandwidth and equitability. They have to first reconceptualize the written word on “flat” paper and understand the handling of “homework” as something electronic, managed online in various systems, open or authenticated!

Perhaps with the advent of blogging, podcasting, wikis, and interactive commentary all online, supported also by the introduction of easy-to-use course management systems, we will see what you speak of here “catch on”!

By: Tom Hoffman

Tom Hoffman — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 17:28:18 +0000

This is a somewhat more complicated question than just a new innovation. More complex commenting schemes have been around forever. I can add voice comments to notes on my Newton! The thing is, they never catch on, and the interesting question is why or if they ever will.

By: Bob Jordan

Bob Jordan — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 17:04:55 +0000

Interesting concept. I am always interested in interfaces that try to foster debate or immitate debate. A designer’s idea for Dogger: the debate Blogger has been rolling around in the back of my head for a couple of years.

http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?49