Social Texts

There was an interesting article in The Chronicle about a month ago (the September 27, 2007 edition—it takes awhile for the Library’s copy to make its way this far down the totem pole…) that talks about a new software called CommentPress. You can click here to view the article.

The CommentPress software is essentially a template for the blogging site WordPress, but what makes it so exciting is that it allows readers of online texts to place comments in the margins, just like people have been doing with printed texts for centuries.

The template divides the browser screen vertically in half so that the original text is on the left and the comment area is on the right. Each paragraph of the original text has a little comment bubble that you can click to add a comment (and each bubble has a number that shows how many comments have already been posted). While the original text scrolls up and down, however, the comment box remains stationary so that it is always positioned next to the text you are currently reading (although you must click on the bubble of the paragraph you are reading for the contents of the comment box to change).

The real advantage of this tool is that it allows a virtual conversation not only between the instructor and students, but also, and perhaps more importantly, between the students and the text itself. It is a means to more meaningfully foster learner-content interaction, as well as to create a truly writerly learning environment.

To learn more about the CommentPress project, visit http://www.futureofthebook.org/commentpress/.