Reading assignments

24.3.1. Reading assignments#

We suggest having students read the relevant chapter(s) of the textbook before class, so that class time can be used for programming demos and practice as well as for design activities or other activities.

Hypothes.is Commenting#

In order for students to engage with the reading, we have enabled the hypothes.is commenting system on the textbook. This way, students can leave comments on the textbook before class as a way of showing they have engaged with the chapter’s materials.

Top right of book webpage has a closed annotation bar, with the top right button opening it.

Fig. 24.1 The hypothes.is annotation bar is on the right of the book, closed by default.#

A book page with a sentence highlighted ("What are your biggest concerns around privacy on social media?"). When the sentence is highlighted there is a pop-up option to Annotate or Highlight, and Annotate is circled.

Fig. 24.2 You can select text on the page and add an annotation.#

We recommend making a new private group on hypothes.is for each class, so the members of the class can see what others in the class think, and the students comments are private and not publicly available online.

Since each chapter is over multiple pages, we aren’t sure how this works with content LMS systems, but we just have students separately submit the comments they made on the book (or a screenshot of it).

Reading comment recommendations#

We recommend that for each chapter students write/submit two comments.

Comment 1: For anything in the chapter, make a comment about it. The comment must be more than just summarizing a part of the chapter. A comment can be something like:

  • answer one of the questions asked in the chapter

  • relate the chapter content to your experience

  • express your emotional reaction to the chapter content

  • express your personal opinion about the chapter content

  • connect the chapter content to something else in this course or elsewhere

  • ask a question you have about the chapter content

  • disagree with something stated in the chapter

Comment 2: Make a comment in the last section of the chapter where there is a list of sources references. Write a comment about one of those sources (or yet another source you found yourself), such as any of the types of comments before (but based on the external source), or additionally:

  • a summary of what the source said

  • a detail from the source

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