We read. We take notes. We share. We learn. And in the past couple of decades, we’ve been doing more of all of this on our computers and, more recently, handheld devices. The problem is that we don’t really have a great piece of software to facilitate the entire experience. That’s where Annotator comes in. Working in partnership with the Hypermedia team under the Comparative Media Studies group at MIT, the open-source developers at Annotator have been building the code-base to turn any piece of digital text into a place for collaborative learning. As the project’s code-base moves closer to a full public launch, Skeptic was called in to research, design, and build the tool’s handheld interface. The result is Annotorious, a beautiful browser-based application that allows users to read, annotate, and share content on their mobile devices. If you’re curious about installing Annotator (http://okfnlabs.org/annotator/) onto your website or mobile app, check out its GitHub repo here (https://github.com/okfn/annotator/). If, on the other hand, you’re more the read-and-jot type, rather than tinker-and-build, stay tuned for the full Annotorious experience.

Published: November 25, 2013