Web Annotation & Knowledge Mapping

Drop by and learn how to combine collaborative web annotation with several forms of knowledge mapping: a different way to learn with peers, online and with free Web resources.

• Contact: Michelle Bachler [m.s.bachler at open dot ac dot uk]
  * Team: Simon Buckingham Shum, Anna De Liddo, Michelle Bachler
  * Hosts: Knowledge Media Institute, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
  * Proposed 'space' or theme: Peer Learning Lighthouse
  * Status: to be confirmed
  

What do you want to achieve? (goal)

Sidewiki, Diigo, ShiftSpace... Bubbl, MindMeister, Cmaps... We'd like to meet others interested in or doing web annotation and web-based knowledge mapping, which are key enabling technologies for learners to express their interpretations of what a resource means: meaning is in the eye of the beholder.

We'll offer people the chance to play with our prototype, Cohere, an open source tool which seeks to join up Web Annotation (inc. social bookmarking) and Knowledge Mapping.

We want to combine the best of these tools to provide online lifelong learners with a way to map their ideas while at the same time browsing and annotating OERs and other free Web resources. BUT we know we're not there yet, so come and tell us how to make it better :-)

• Come and discuss the pros and cons of different tools
• Come and play with Cohere
• Give us usability feedback, feature requests and pedagogical thoughts from learning and tech geeks
• We also hope to engage with developers and to discuss both the API and the Open Source code.
  

Who should come? How many? For how long? (audience)

• Anyone interested to see how social bookmarking meets web annotation and knowledge mapping in the web browser.
  
• Educators interested in how to tune generic web apps more for learning, inquiry and sensemaking
  
• Everyone is welcome to hang out as long as they want
  

• We will run 2 hours per day, each day of the festival
  

What will they do when they get there? (activities)

Chat/show what you're up to, ask questions, meet like-minded people.

Specifically with Cohere...

We'll show participants a 3 min demo of Cohere and then we'll ask them to put their hands on the tool.

They will highlight and annotate Web pages, make connections between other people's annotations, and craft a map of their thoughts.

They will also be asked if they want to give usability feedback and suggestions by recording a small 2 min video.

What will you / they have at the end? (outputs)

A better understanding of what's available for web annotation and knowledge mapping.

We will get useful usability test and feedback in order to improve the Cohere interface and user experience. Participants will learn about new ways to interact with the Web as a "notebook", use network visualizations to search and explore their notes and exploit bookmarking to organize them.

Participants will get to know the Cohere team, and can take home leaflets, exercises, and maybe a Ltd. Edition T-Shirt for giving us great user feedback!

Additional background and context

Cohere is developed in KMi, by the Hypermedia Discourse Team lead by Simon Buckingham Shum.
It is one of the learning innovation technology developed within the Open Learning Network Project (OLnet).

Cohere was one of the 10 finalists of the Mozilla Firefox competition Jetpack for Learning Design Challenge.
Please visit this site for more info on the Mozilla competition submission
Or go to the Cohere Website to try it out!

Related links

Movies

• Cohere free, open source web app
  
• Lightning intro: Clips / Ideas / Connections
  
• Submission to Mozilla Jetpack for Learning: sets Cohere in a learning context
  
• The social semantic network map
• Setting agents to watch the network for interesting connections

Reading

• Open Learning Network project: Collective Intelligence strand
• Collective intelligence for OER sustainability
  
• Cohere: A prototype for contested collective intelligence