I recent­ly watched a pre­sen­ta­tion by Dr. Remi Kalir, mod­er­at­ed by Dr. Valerie Irvine, on the top­ic of social anno­ta­tion. Going into it, I had a sol­id grasp of anno­ta­tion as a con­cept, I’ve scrib­bled in the mar­gins of books, marked up wood­work­ing project plans, and used dig­i­tal tools like Google Class­room to pro­vide feed­back, but I hadn’t real­ly thought about anno­ta­tion as a deeply social, col­lab­o­ra­tive, and even polit­i­cal act. Kalir’s talk opened my eyes to the ways anno­ta­tion extends beyond the class­room and into every­day life in ways I had nev­er quite artic­u­lat­ed before.

One of the most strik­ing moments in Dr. Kalir’s talk was when he shared an image of a stop sign in Den­ver that had been phys­i­cal­ly anno­tat­ed by an artist to say, “If you can read this, you are on Indige­nous land.” That moment high­light­ed how a sim­ple anno­ta­tion can shift the mean­ing of some­thing as mun­dane as a street sign, turn­ing it into a reminder of his­to­ry and pres­ence.

Anno­ta­tion in var­i­ous forms hap­pens con­stant­ly in my own work. Stu­dents leave their own marks in the shop, notes on a project plan, tweaks to a design, even their names etched into a piece of scrap wood when no one is look­ing. These acts rep­re­sent a kind of hid­den lit­er­a­cy, a way of mak­ing some­thing per­son­al, rein­forc­ing what Dr. Kalir described as annotation’s role in shap­ing iden­ti­ty, activism, and learn­ing.

Dr. Kalir also spoke about Hypoth­e­sis, a social anno­ta­tion tool that allows stu­dents to col­lec­tive­ly mark up texts in a dig­i­tal space. He point­ed out how tra­di­tion­al online dis­cus­sions where stu­dents read a text in one space and then dis­cuss it in anoth­er (like an LMS dis­cus­sion forum) can feel dis­con­nect­ed. Social anno­ta­tion brings dis­cus­sion into the text itself, mak­ing read­ing a com­mu­nal act rather than an iso­lat­ed one.

LMS (Learn­ing Man­age­ment Sys­tem) refers to the dig­i­tal plat­form edu­ca­tors use to man­age and orga­nize stu­dent learn­ing mate­ri­als, assign­ments, and dis­cus­sions. Com­mon exam­ples include Google Class­room and Moo­dle. At my school, I pri­mar­i­ly use Google Class­room to dis­trib­ute project plans, track stu­dent progress, and pro­vide feed­back.

Inte­grat­ing anno­ta­tion into instruc­tion is some­thing I already see hap­pen­ing in my wood­work­ing class­es, though in a dif­fer­ent form. Stu­dents often sketch out their designs and add notes about mea­sure­ments, adjust­ments, or alter­na­tive mate­ri­als. Some­times they’ll cir­cle some­thing in the plans and write, “Is this the best joint for this project?” or “What if I tried a dif­fer­ent fin­ish?” That kind of dia­logue, between the stu­dent and the text, or between stu­dents work­ing on sim­i­lar projects, feels a lot like what Dr. Kalir described.

One moment that stands out hap­pened this year dur­ing a box project where stu­dents laser-engraved Indige­nous sym­bols onto their designs. Ini­tial­ly, one stu­dent chose a sym­bol based on aes­thet­ics alone, but after research­ing the mean­ing behind dif­fer­ent sym­bols, they real­ized their first choice didn’t reflect some­thing per­son­al­ly mean­ing­ful. Lat­er, after pre­sent­ing their cho­sen sym­bols and their mean­ings to the class, the stu­dent told me, “I wish I had been able to see oth­er stu­dents’ notes before I start­ed. This would have helped me decide faster.” That com­ment rein­forced the idea that col­lab­o­ra­tive anno­ta­tion enhances the learn­ing process, allow­ing stu­dents to engage with their work and their peers’ think­ing in deep­er ways.

Anoth­er pow­er­ful part of Dr. Kalir’s pre­sen­ta­tion was his dis­cus­sion of anno­ta­tion as a counter-nar­ra­tive, a way to chal­lenge dom­i­nant sto­ries, rewrite his­to­ry, and make voic­es heard. He showed exam­ples of protest signs, graf­fi­ti on the Berlin Wall, and anno­ta­tions on the Mexico/US bor­der wall, both of which trans­formed phys­i­cal bar­ri­ers into spaces of resis­tance and sto­ry­telling. He also spoke about the ethics of anno­ta­tion, espe­cial­ly in the con­text of AI, where human labor is often exploit­ed to train mod­els that gen­er­ate anno­ta­tions.

The process of learn­ing is just as impor­tant as the final prod­uct, espe­cial­ly in a hands-on class like wood­work­ing. Dr. Kalir’s talk rein­forced that idea. Anno­ta­tion isn’t just about mark­ing up a text, it’s about mak­ing think­ing vis­i­ble. It’s about ques­tion­ing, revis­ing, and build­ing on ideas through mul­ti­ple iter­a­tions. In wood­work­ing, stu­dents rarely get their designs per­fect on the first attempt. They sketch, adjust, test, and refine. The same is true for anno­ta­tion, it’s not a one-time act, but an evolv­ing process of inter­act­ing with knowl­edge, refin­ing under­stand­ing, and incor­po­rat­ing new per­spec­tives.

Pow­er dynam­ics also come into play in the class­room. Who gets to anno­tate? Who gets to leave a mark? The process of anno­ta­tion can be guid­ed in a way that encour­ages stu­dents to engage crit­i­cal­ly, rather than pas­sive­ly con­sum­ing infor­ma­tion. By fos­ter­ing a space where stu­dents active­ly con­tribute, anno­ta­tion can help them con­nect with learn­ing on a deep­er lev­el.

Dr. Kalir sug­gest­ed that one of the eas­i­est ways to intro­duce social anno­ta­tion into a class­room is to start by anno­tat­ing the syl­labus giv­ing stu­dents the oppor­tu­ni­ty to ask ques­tions, pro­vide feed­back, and co-con­struct the expec­ta­tions for the course. That approach aligns with my belief in giv­ing stu­dents own­er­ship of their learn­ing from the start.

Anno­ta­tion is also embed­ded in for­ma­tive assess­ment in my wood­work­ing class­es. My new­ly designed project plans include a reflec­tion sec­tion where stu­dents anno­tate their own designs, not­ing what worked, what didn’t, and what they would do dif­fer­ent­ly next time. This struc­ture makes the design process vis­i­ble and allows stu­dents to track their own progress and deci­sion-mak­ing over time. Instead of rely­ing sole­ly on a final rubric, this approach pro­vides a clear­er pic­ture of how stu­dents think through a project, empha­siz­ing learn­ing over per­fec­tion.

Cul­tur­al con­nec­tions also play a role. I’ve worked hard to incor­po­rate First Peo­ples’ Prin­ci­ples of Learn­ing into wood­work­ing projects, encour­ag­ing stu­dents to research Indige­nous sym­bols and inte­grate them into their work. Anno­ta­tion, whether dig­i­tal or phys­i­cal, offers a way for stu­dents to doc­u­ment and reflect on those cul­tur­al con­nec­tions, mak­ing their learn­ing process more inten­tion­al and mean­ing­ful.

Final Thoughts

Watch­ing this talk rein­forced the idea that anno­ta­tion is every­where, from text­books to wood­work­ing plans to the stop signs we pass every day. It’s more than just mark­ing up a page; it’s a tool for learn­ing, ques­tion­ing, and mak­ing mean­ing in the world.

Anno­ta­tion enhances reflec­tion, improves col­lab­o­ra­tion, and makes learn­ing vis­i­ble. Dr. Kalir’s talk served as a reminder of its val­ue in both dig­i­tal and phys­i­cal spaces. As I con­tin­ue refin­ing my instruc­tion­al prac­tices, anno­ta­tion will remain an impor­tant part of fos­ter­ing deep­er engage­ment in my class­room.

Additional Notes:

Dr. Kalir’s back­ground:

• Asso­ciate Direc­tor of Fac­ul­ty Devel­op­ment and Applied Research with Learn­ing Inno­va­tion and Life­time Edu­ca­tion at Duke Uni­ver­si­ty.
• Asso­ciate Direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Applied Research and Design in Trans­for­ma­tive Edu­ca­tion
• Pre­vi­ous­ly a pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado Den­ver.
• Research focus­es on lit­er­a­cy edu­ca­tion and learn­ing sci­ences, par­tic­u­lar­ly col­lab­o­ra­tive read­ing and writ­ing.
• Author of two books with MIT Press: Anno­ta­tion and Re/Marks on Pow­er: How Anno­ta­tion Inscribes His­to­ry, Lit­er­a­cy, and Jus­tice