Epub and Shared Annotation

[paulckennedy]

I posted this question in a thread about social bookmarking of eBooks by mistake.

Has anyone come up with an annotation sharing method which is being adopted by the various device manufacturers of the new eReaders?

I used to be a teacher. I remember the hassle and cumbersome nature of distributing the multitudes of materials that I had assembled.

I see a situation like the following.

I teach a science class. Before the school year starts, I review a selection of Textbooks that I want to use for the class. As I set-up for the class, I annotate the textbook with videos I find to demonstrate the concepts that are in each lesson. I also add links to flash applications which allow them to do electronic labs. I create Word and Excel documents for the various activities, labs, quizzes, and tests. I link them at the appropriate points in the textbook too. After I have accumulated my preparations for the year, I gather all of the links and annotations that I have made and separate them into units. I take the separate units and create annotation sets. On my class web site, I have a forum which I use throughout the instruction. As I introduce new units, I publish a link to the unit annotation set for the period of time. Students can download the set and attach it to the electronic textbook that they purchased at the start of the year. The forum also allows them to upload their own notes and annotations for sharing with the class. Each student has concurrent access to both my notes as well as the other shared notes during the class.

With the Entourage Edge, I can already see the beginnings of such a teaching system becoming available. If the annotation sets are viewable separately from the electronic textbook, then I can see being able to provide multiple ways for students to have access to the material.