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Social Annotation, Open Pedagogy, and an OER Text for Composition�

Anna Mills �City College of San Francisco�ASCCC-OERI English Discipline Lead and author of How Arguments Work��Presentation licensed CC BY NC

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Housekeeping

Welcome!

Post any questions in the chat

Raise your hand at any time

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Agenda

Check-in: what would you like to get out of this webinar?

Why How Arguments Work?

The How Arguments Work Student Contribution Contest

Assigning social annotation

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A free and open writing textbook

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Where did How Arguments Work: A Guide to Writing and Analyzing Texts in College come from?

A collaboration among 14 California community college English instructors

Funded by 3 grants from the Academic Senate for the California Community Colleges OER Initiative, 2019-2022

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Why adopt How Arguments Work: A Guide to Writing and Analyzing Texts in College?

A practical, hands-on approach students like

Free and adaptable on LibreTexts.org

Has been used in at least 35 colleges

Good reviews on various OER search sites

Quizzes, essay assignments, readings, and other teaching resources

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Highlights of the approach

They Say / I Say style templates throughout

Diverse representation in examples and images

Encouraging language of possibility (“We can…” or “One option is…” instead of "Don't do X")

De-emphasizes technical vocabulary of rhetoric in favor of straightforward everyday terms

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Join us!

How Arguments Work has received positive reviews from instructors posting on the Open Textbook Library, Merlot, and OER Commons as well as from six anonymous academic peer reviewers.
Some 176 instructors have downloaded its Learning Management System resources on Canvas Commons.
“I've been using your text for almost a year now, and I think it's fantastic."--Susan Stafinbil, Arapahoe Community College.
See Praise for How Arguments Work for more from students as well as teachers (https://bit.ly/HAWPraise)

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Now, we’d like to improve How Arguments Work with student feedback and content

We invite students to submit editorial suggestions, original examples, images, or videos that could become part of the textbook.

Options:

Write 200-400 words
Create an original image (with alt text)
Create an original 3-10 minute video

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The 2022 How Arguments Work Student Contribution Contest

Cash prizes ($100, $50, $25)
Instructors assign social annotation as students read the text.
By December 1, students submit their contribution
Winners announced December 15
All participants get a certificate of recognition for their editorial contribution.

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Criteria for Awards

Submissions will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

Does the submission give a thoughtful response to existing content in the textbook?
Does the submission help readers understand and/or apply a concept in the textbook?
Does the submission lead to a valuable clarification of or addition to the content of the textbook?

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Purpose of the Contest

This contest can serve as a test case for open pedagogy projects to enhance the quality of existing OER texts. It will also form the basis for survey research into student attitudes toward open pedagogy, social annotation, and OER (supported by the OpenEd Group). Our hope is that this contest can

enhance students’ learning experience in writing courses this semester,
encourage students to see the value of their own reflections and contributions for other students beyond their class,
help the textbook authors and editors improve How Arguments Work,
and add examples that make it more relevant and engaging for future students.

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�Assigning social annotation

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What is social annotation?

An increasingly popular pedagogical tool
Comment on a text
See others’ comments
Reply to others’ comments and questions
Much like commenting in Word or Google Docs but for other file formats
The two most common platforms are Hypothes.is and Perusall.

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Social annotation isn’t usually possible with commercial textbooks

Commercial publishers control their texts on their own platforms—no direct PDF or website access
They don’t allow social annotation tools to access them
Only a few publishers allow paid access through Perusall

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But OER texts work perfectly with social annotation

If a textbook is open, we can assign students not just to read but to comment and converse about each part of it
OER + social annotation means student encounters with the textbook are active, social, and fruitful!

Image by PIRO4D from Pixabay

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Supports comprehension

Students can reference other students’ responses to help them identify main and supporting ideas and interpret the text’s meaning.
Tied to specific lines in the textbook, so students are naturally directed to reread and re-examine the text as they respond and read responses.

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Students test their understanding by suggesting examples of principles from the text—other students and the teacher can confirm or correct

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Makes textbook reading a social activity

Students can see teacher annotations and other students’ annotations as they are added. They can reply to each other's annotations.
Helps students who are less comfortable speaking engage socially with other students.

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Social annotation is a form of social media, a comfortable and appealing way to communicate in the digital age. One student called Hypothesis “a literary Facebook.”
Hashtags and mentions enable more interaction.�

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Supports equity

Allows students who have similar identity-specific reactions to the material to texts to bond and support each other.

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Provides visual evidence that the text assigned is not the only authority--the students are speaking back to it and to each other about it right there next to it.
Engaging for students who feel marginalized and alienated.

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Here a student connects her Mexican heritage and language experiences to the text, responding to another student who mentioned Spanglish.

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Boosts student confidence and participation

Students feel good when the teacher refers to their annotations in class.
Students will be more likely to speak in live class meetings when asked to elaborate on a comment.

Especially beneficial for struggling and less confident learners.

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At the bottom, a student reassures another student about her English fluency

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Annotations show what students are confused about

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Social annotation supports open pedagogy

Textbook authors, adapters, and remixers can use student comments to help us revise the text, thereby

modeling being writers and scholars always trying to improve and revise.
showing fundamental values of academia in practice
showing students that they have a role in an ongoing academic conversation.

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Student annotations help OER authors and remixers revise

We see what is not clear.

Teachers generate ideas that can be incorporated into revision.

In the next slide, a student’s question suggests a point I can add to the text.

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Here a student’s surprise makes me realize I should add an example

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Ways to Assign Social Annotation

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How do I go about assigning social annotation of an open textbook?

If using a LibreTexts book, use the built-in Hypothesis integration
Assign annotation through your LMS with Hypothesis or Perusall
Assign annotation in Google Docs

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Built-in annotation on LibreTexts

How Arguments Work can be adopted or remixed on the LibreTexts OER platform

(email info@LibreTexts.org for your own free account if you want to remix the book)

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LibreTexts offers guidance on working with Hypothesis

The LibreTexts �Construction Guide section on Hypothes.is showed me how to get to this annotation tool and set up an account.

I could invite students to annotate directly in LibreTexts in this way.

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Options

I could create a private group for my class.
Students set up Hypothes.is accounts and join the group.
Annotations would be shared with the class, but not publicly.
I could log participation in my gradebook.

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I can view annotations by student in a private group

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But what if I want to give students gradebook credit for annotating?

Hypothes.is LMS integration
Free institutional trials, then by institutional subscription

Perusall LMS integration
Free to institutions
Students pay to annotate commercial textbooks
Annotating OER texts as PDFs or web pages is free

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Hypothesis and Perusall can both work with websites and PDFs. �

Grab the URL of the LibreTexts page you want students to annotate
OR download the page, pages, or chapter as a PDF file and upload that to the Hypothesis or Perusall assignment.

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Final Notes

Please consider offering your own feedback or suggestions on the textbook! I’m at amills@ccsf.edu.�
Additional Resources: bit.ly/AnnotateHAW

Thanks to the Fall and Spring 2022 City College of San Francisco students who gave permission for me to share their annotations in this talk.