Developing web annotation tools for learners and instructors

This research develops Web annotation tools (WATs), allowing users to annotate on hypertexts, to build up knowledge structure, to browse instructions provided electronically by the system administrator or the instructor, to share annotations with the other learner, and to instruct other learners. The WATs is a distributed World Wide Web application based on HTTP access and allows annotations on HTML documents. The major functions of WATs include highlighting texts, inserting and editing annotations, organizing and presenting annotations hierarchically, as well as sharing annotations. There are two modes for WATs, individual and sharing modes. For the individual mode, the five interactive components are Main Tool Bar, Hypertext, Annotation Editor, Hierarchy Viewer, and Instruction Viewer. The sharing mode supports asynchronous and synchronous sharing of annotations and discussion for peer-to-peer and instructor-to-student collaborative learning.