Promoting Active Learning Through Collaborative Annotation Tools

In this study, we report findings on how digital social annotation can generally be an effective means of helping students engage deeply with text, although assignment requirements and classroom dynamics may also play a factor. Various learning strategies are widely used as a means to kindle active learning and promote higher levels of content and peer interaction in online education. One strategy growing in popularity is the use of digital collaborative annotation tools which allow students to mark and annotate digital text as well as communicate with and learn from the annotations of their peers. This paper discusses a multiple-case study which evaluated the effectiveness of Hypothesis, a digital collaborative annotation tool, in helping students to engage actively with reading assignments and with their peers.