Best Web Annotation Tools and Apps for Teachers and StudentsBy Med Kharbach, PhD May 24, 2022 web annotating tools Annotation is a great way to capture and record your thoughts as you interact with reading resources (e.g., web pages, documents, PDFs, images, and videos). Annotation also offers a deeper level of engagement with text and is one of the efficient strategies for close and critical reading.
Annotating, as
Porter-O’Donnell (2004) stated, is “a writing-to-learn strategy for use while reading or re-reading…[It] helps readers reach a deeper level of engagement and promotes active reading. It makes the reader’s “dialogue with the text” (Probst) a visible record of the thoughts that emerge while making sense of the reading” (p. 82).
Besides enhancing one’s comprehension of a text, annotation is also a great way to promote collaborative team work. Students working on the same project can record their comments at the margins of their reading documents then share their annotated docs with their collaborators and engage in interactive discussions.
There is a wide variety of web tools and mobile apps you can use to annotate web content and PDFs. Below is a collection of some of the best annotation tools and apps I recommend for teachers and students. I organized these resources into three main categories: web-based tools, PDF apps, and Screenshot tools.
I. Web-based annotation tools
These are web tools and Chrome extensions that you can use to add annotations to websites.
1. InsertLearning
InsertLearning enables you to easily markup any web page and transform it into an interactive document by inserting various videos, questions, discussions, and more. Students can easily access your annotations by visiting that website. They can respond to your questions, engage in discussions and add
