I just finished reading Dr. Castellon’s blog on Hypothes.is and found myself intrigued by the comment, “I can imagine that reading becomes more of an engaged process.” An app, such as Hypothes.is, allows us to ‘write’ on a digital document in the same way that we can write on a paper document with a pencil or highlighter. I have a Bible from my father-in-law and one from my great grandmother, both of which are annotated in different colour pencil crayons. I can see comments written on the sides on the pages as well as highlighted sections that pertain to the written comments. Looking at this allows me to engage with the text to a much greater extent than merely reading what was already there.
I don’t like marking up my paper books, but I find myself looking forward to annotating digital documents. The main reason I don’t like annotating paper books is that I don’t want to be distracted by what I thought at one point. I’d rather have the opportunity to develop new thoughts from the same passage. With a digital annotation, I know that I can delete it if I want or I can ignore it as it is on the side and so easier to ignore. I look forward to using this app in the near future.