This week’s focus is on curation and annotation. Two guest speakers shared practical ways to enhance online research and collaboration. Dr. Remi Kalir introduced social annotation through Hypothes.is, encouraging learners to annotate course materials, blogs, and articles together in private groups. Jessica Mussell then demonstrated Zotero, a versatile tool for collecting, organizing, and citing sources.

Both speakers underscored how simple these tools can be to use while also offering tips for collaborating with peers. Social annotation can open up new kinds of conversations in an online environment, and Zotero’s sharing features let you exchange sources and notes with your classmates. The goal is not only to make research more efficient but also to enhance the sense of community among learners. By adopting these strategies, you will likely see improvements in your organization, your engagement with texts, and your overall ability to learn from and support others.

Key Points

  • Dr. Remi Kalir’s talk explains how Hypothes.is promotes social learning by letting users annotate texts privately or within groups
  • Installing Hypothes.is is recommended as an “ethical edtech” option, though participants can opt out if they have privacy concerns
  • Zotero is a free research management tool for gathering citations, creating bibliographies, and archiving PDFs
  • Jessica Mussell’s workshop resources walk through installing Zotero, adding references, inserting citations in Word, and more
  • UVic Libraries’ Intro to Zotero guide contains activities and advanced workshop options

Learning about social annotation and citation management in one session felt empowering. Hypothes.is lets me see how peers interpret the same readings, making group conversations more dynamic. I also appreciate Zotero’s ability to keep everything in one place, especially when juggling multiple sources. Both tools remind me that digital collaboration does not have to be complicated. Instead, it can help our shared learning journey and help us feel more in control of our research and ideas.