Have you ever found an especially fabulous blog post, and bookmarked it? Yes, of course you have. But have you then found that a few weeks later you can’t remember exactly which bit of the post had seemed so interesting, or even why you’d saved it in the first place? This happens to me. A lot.
So it was with deep joy that I came across (via this Mashable blog post) a new free tool called Highlighter (still in beta). It does what it says on the tin – it highlights. You can highlight bits in a blog post. No need to worry any more about middle-aged forgetfulness, because not only can you highlight snippets of interest, but you can leave comments for the blog author on your highlighted snippets. And you can share the highlighted snippets with your own network via email, Facebook and Twitter. And Highlighter is free.
But wait – one snag. The blog author needs to have Highlighter installed on his or her blog. And Mashable didn’t. So I’m writing this blog post for two reasons: partly so I don’t forget about why I bookmarked the Mashable post in the first place, but mostly to try Highlighter out with you, dear readers. But not just on this blog. On your blogs too.
Here’s the challenge. Not just a technical challenge to try out Highlighter, but also a pedagogical challenge to learn something about mLearning 
The challenge has 3 steps:
- Step 1 (2 minutes):
First, you need to sign up for a Highlighter account yourself, to be able to comment on and share highlights.
- Step 2 (2 – 10 minutes, depending on how much and how fast you read):
This blog has 11 posts about mLearning (mobile or handheld learning) – listed below. Look at any that take your fancy, and highlight at least one snippet you find interesting / useful / relevant / or that you simply want to remember. Drag your mouse over the snippet to highlight it, and you will see some options. Leave a comment on your chosen snippet if you like, and /or share it with others (remember you need a Highlighter account for this). You should be able to see and read other readers’ highlighted snippets and comments as well.
- mLearning #1: The big picture
- mLearning #2: The issues
- mLearning #3: The apps
- mLearning #4: On the move
- mLearning #5: A case study
- mLearning #6: Six key mLearning resources
- mLearning #7: mLearning & social networks
- mLearning #8: Five Top Tweets (on mLearning)
- mLearning #9: A Dummies Guide to QR codes
- mLearning #10: Yes we scan (more on QR codes)
- 5 Myths about mLearning
- Step 3 (5 mins):
I would love to be able to highlight, comment on, and share snippets on your blog too. If you have a blog, install the free Highlighter plug-in, and then leave your blog URL in the comments below this blog post. I (and any other readers) can then go along to your blog, browse your posts, and do some highlighting! The Highlighter plug-in is compatible with WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr and Typepad. It took me about 2 mins to install it in this WordPress blog.
Happy highlighting!
Nicky Hockly
The Consultants-E
June 2011
Subscribe via RSS
My homework’s done. Really love it. Highlighter is more than just highlighting text. There can be even interaction!!!!!! So it is fantastic for reading, for example. You can higlight part of a text and ask students questions about it. You can also highlight words and ask students to guess their meaning. Drawback: adding the code to your blog HTML. You may need to record a tutorial; not everybody will guess what to do with it. This also means all your students will need a blog (well, this is not a drawback!)- Thanks for sharing this fantastic “tool”, Nicky!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for trying out Highlighter in these posts, Miguel!
Yes, I think it has good potential for students being able to interact on specific sections / sentences in a text. It’s also a lot faster and potentially less scary than submitting an entire comment at the end of a post.
In terms of adding Highlighter to a blog – it’s very simple in WordPress, as there is a plug-in that installs automatically, so it took me less than 2 min on this blog. It is apparently compatible with other blogs, but I’m not sure how complicated that is in practice. If anyone has feedback on that, it would be interesting to hear about.
In the meantime, anyone else who wants to try out Highlighter can hunt down Miguel’s highlighted bits in the blog posts listed above – he has highlighted and commented on snippets 11 times
Great find, Nicky – I love it. I’ll add it to the Digital Play blog when I get a chance
Good to hear, Graham, and I’ll come and do some highlighting on your blog then!
Interesting…mmm…For Blogger, you have to copy the code you get from Highlighter and paste it in the Blog HTML code…So if you are not familair with this language, it might be a bit daunting…Anyways, a good quick tutorial may solve this.
It is a GREAT IDEA .. seems to be few bugs at the moment but in the forums it looks like they are working on it ..
Thanks Kathleen – and if you yourself have a blog to try it out on, do let me know so I can come along (digital) highlighter in (virtual) hand…
Nicky, have you heard of Scrible? If not, read my post on it: http://acliltoclimb.blogspot.com/2011/05/fantastic-new-tool-for-annotating-web.html
Cheers!
Thanks for the heads up on Scrible, Chiew – this is a new tool to me and I will check it out.
Nicky,
I’d forgotten to put my website on the comment – if you could add it in, you can delete this one: http://iasku.wordpress.com/me/
Great tool Nicky, reminds me a little of Google Notebook (ah, how I miss that) but with a social element added. I’ve added it to my blog and hope more people do the same.
Hi David, yes, it is rather a nifty little tool. I went along to your blog to leave a highlight, but it didn’t seem to show up for me, although I do have highlighter installed on my computer. Perhaps I’m missing something?
Thanks for sharing this, Nicky – it looks like it could be really useful!
Nothing happened when I first installed it, but it seems to have started working all of a sudden, so I’ll be investigating it further…
Sue
Glad you like the tool, Sue – I’ll be popping along to your blog to try it out there shortly too
An update: Although there were things I really liked about the Highlighter tool, I decided to remove it as I discovered that it was interfering with the functionality of some of the image links on my blog and preventing people from clicking on them.
I do think it has a lot of potential though, and would consider re-installing it if they iron that particular problem out in a later version.
Sue
Sue Lyon-Jones recently posted..Intermission
Thanks for the update, Sue. I haven’t noticed any interference with functionality, but visitors don’t seem to use Highlighter, so I may end up uninstalling it for that reason.
The latest little plug-in I’m trying out is Comment luv – you can see how it automatically links to your latest blog posting in your comment above