From highlighting passages in a reading to scribbling notes in the margins, annotation has a familiar place in our roles as learners, teachers, and academics. Web-based tools such as hypothes.is provide a new level of collaboration to that process, by giving us the ability to attach notes, commentary, and discussion to any document that exists on the web.

You can find out more about hypothes.is here. Want to see it in action? The OERu uses hypothes.is in its free online courses, encouraging learners across the world to contribute ideas and support each other. One example is in the ‘mini-challenge’ on the ‘Digital skills versus digital literacies’ page of Digital literacies for online learning. If you install hypothes.is and visit the article referred to in the activity, you can view public comments made by OERu learners.

How could you use web annotation as a collaborative activity with your learners (and/or your colleagues)? Are you already using tools like Hypothes.is in different ways? Remember, too, that comments on Google docs (or similar) are a form of annotation, as are things like Vialogues for annotating / discussing video.

Visit the ‘Annotation as Collaboration’ discussion forum to share your thoughts and to see how others are using annotation collaboratively. If this is your first time posting in an OERu Forum, you will need to create an account.