October 30, 2005

Annotation Tools, Everywhere

A propos nothing, I've noticed over the last few weeks and months an increasing number of tools that support the micro-annoation of a wide range of electronic resources.

Whilst I'm not going to blog - just yet - about how we might make use of many of these technologies, I thought it might be worth putting up a few signposts to a tiny sample of them:

  • services that allow you to "micro-annotate" webpages (such as Stickis, Kaboodle and Shadows);
  • social bookmarking sites in general that support user comments/annoatation (for example, del.icio.us or Connotea);
  • photo/image annotation, such as in flickr and the scary Riya;
  • there's even audio annotation from BBC Annotatable Audio project;
  • and of course, tagging the planet, such as these recently unveiled sites: Panoramio or Your History Here (there's just too many of these Google maps sites - keep an eye on Google Maps Mania if you want regular updates...One thing they do remind me of is a living Domesday book. The BBC did a multimedia one in 1986 - perhaps now is time to start a rolling Domesday book?) Posted by ajh59 at October 30, 2005 09:19 PM
Comments

I have been working on an annotation system for the Moodle course management system. It allows users to highlight and annotate arbitrary passages of HTML text while using Firefox or Internet Explorer without requiring a browser extension or other special software on the client (the software relies on Javascript on the client). My link leads to more information, including the Moodle extension, an online demo, and a generic version which can be integrated into other web applications.

Posted by: Geoffrey Glass at November 9, 2005 06:53 AM