This week in EDCI 136, I learned the skill of curation and annotation. Through practical work with Zotero and Hypothes.is, and two excellent guest lectures by Dr. Remi Kalir and Jessica Mussell, I’ve come to understand that curation isn’t just amassing stuff, it’s about responding meaningfully to ideas, voices, and knowledge.

Here’s what resonated most, and how I began to shift my conception of digital literacy and scholarly collaboration.

✍️ Social Annotation with Hypothes.is: Notes That Talk Back

Before this week, “annotation” meant highlighting a textbook or writing notes in the margin something private, rough, and just for me. But after listening to Dr. Remi Kalir, I learned that annotation can also be:

• đź’¬ Dialogic: sparking real conversations around ideas

• đź”„ Intertextual: connecting and layering meanings across sources

• đź§© Collaborative: a form of social learning, not just solo studying

One powerful quote from his talk really stuck with me:

“Annotation is not neutral. It can interrupt, question, challenge, and transform the meaning of a text.”

Dr. Kalir’s examples—like graffiti on the Berlin Wall or projections on protest monuments—blew my mind. I’d never considered those forms of public writing as annotation, but they truly are. They’re social, layered, and rooted in the real world.

📚 Zotero: Your Personal Research DJ 🎧

Our second guest, Jessica Mussell, introduced us to Zotero, a fantastic tool for researching, citing, and organizing. I used to despise creating bibliographies (especially when switching citation styles)—but Zotero is a game-changer.

🎯 Key Features I Explored:

• Automatically capture article metadata and PDFs

• Create folders to curate resources by topic

• Generate citations and bibliographies in seconds

• Use plugins to cite inside Word and Google Docs

• Add highlights and annotations inside PDFs

Zotero isn’t just a citation tool—it’s like Spotify for sources. You create research playlists, organize ideas, and collaborate when needed. I especially liked Jessica’s metaphor about research curation being like making music playlists for your brain!

Why Curation & Annotation Matter

This week helped me connect some dots:

• Annotation helps me engage with ideas more deeply—especially when it’s social

• Curation helps me organize my digital brain and build research habits I can take beyond university

• These tools teach me to read, write, and think more critically, not just collect information

I used to treat research like a one-way street: find a source → quote it → cite it. But now I realize it’s more like a conversation. With Hypothes.is and Zotero, I’m learning how to take part in that dialogue more meaningfully.