As I described in class today, we’re going to be doing a social experiment with Hegirascope using Web 2.0 tools. The idea is to create a trail of virtual breadcrumbs through a short reading of Hegirascope, in which you leave Post-It Note style annotations on each page you read.
You can follow my own trail through Hegirascope, which should give you an idea of what we’re after.
Here’s what you’ll need:
- Visit Trailfire and register for a free account.
- Once you’re logged in with your email address and password, you can download the Trailfire extension for your browser. There are Mac and PC versions, and both Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers are supported.
- When the extension is installed (you may need to restart your browser), you’ll see two new buttons on your toolbar. One of these is the “Mark Trail” icon:
- Click on this icon whenever you want to mark a page. You can highlight text on a page, and the annotation will be centered around that text. You can click and drag the annotations around as you want.
- Within the annotation itself, you can insert formatted text, links, and even images.
- Finally, if you are using Firefox, I recommend installing the Web Developer Extension. With this extension installed you can go to Tools–>Web Developer–>Disable and select “Disable Meta Redirects,” which will prevent Hegirascope from automatically refreshing its pages before you’ve had a chance to read them.
Now here’s what I want you to try with Hegirascope:
- Begin reading Hegirascope again. Try to follow a different path from what you have done before.
- On each page you read, “mark” it with Trailfire.
- In each annotation, write whatever thoughts flit through your head about this page. Consider these questions to get you started: What do you think this page is about? What don’t you understand? What parts do you understand? What link brought you to this page? Why did you choose that link? How does this page relate to the page before it?
- Experiment with some of the features of Trailfire, like including links or images in your annotations.
- Your “trail” for Hegirascope should be about 15 pages deep. That is, read about 15 linked screens of Hegirascope text, and comment on each of those pages.
This is a low-stakes experiment. There’s no grade attached to it and it’s okay to fumble your way through. I don’t know if this experiment will succeed or fail, but I do want everyone to try. We’ll be doing some more of this “social bookmarking” later in the semester, and this exercise will be a good trial run (or sacrificial lamb, whichever metaphor you prefer).
If you run into technological glitches, add a comment to this post, and I’ll try to help you out (and perhaps classmates might chime in too with their solutions).