Comments on: Thinking about media and oral history annotation

By: Erin Dickey

Erin Dickey — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 15:29:47 +0000

I agree with your general assessment of TinEye image search versus Google’s reverse image search. In my exploratory searches with both tools, TinEye provided a more focused set of search returns, which could be very useful for institutions looking to trace how the images they make accessible online are accessed and used (as in the example article, “Where Do Images of Art Go Once They Go Online”), as well as for scholars seeking more “exact” copies of the images they search for. However, Google’s broader search returns could prove useful when seeking variant permutations of a given image, how certain images may have been appropriated in other works, or iconological/stylistic connections between sets of very similar images. In general, it seems that Google’s reverse image search might be more useful in an exploratory phase of research, while TinEye image search could prove very helpful when you know exactly what you’re looking for. Of course, your example described above proves an excellent exception to this rule, reminding us that it’s always valuable to check multiple sources–always a good scholarly practice, whether using digital tools or not. And, in the case of these image searching tools, there’s an added advantage to checking multiple sources multiple times, since search returns will change over time as images are added and manipulated in new ways.

By: Colin

Colin — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 18:10:34 +0000

Elizabeth,

I appreciate how you provide a very helpful overview of many of the different tools that we’ve looked at for annotating and commenting upon various types of media. It is often simultaneously a benefit and a pitfall of digital technologies that there are so many different tools and platforms available for doing similar tasks. It becomes increasingly important, then to keep track of the variety of options that are out there and to think critically about what tool will best serve the project at hand. It’s easy to just start using a tool that you’re familiar with, but you might be missing out on a tool that’s much more suited to what you’re trying to accomplish. With digital technologies, it certainly pays to be flexible, open, and to at least experiment with new tools and platforms as they become accessible. I think that’s been one of the great benefits of this particular course so far: we have the opportunity to try out a lot of different tools, and then have the space and time to think, discuss, and write about what we like and what we’re having issues with. Moving into the future as scholars using digital tools for our research or work, it will certainly be beneficial to continue to make space for this kind of reflection, comparison, and discourse about the platforms we use to do our work.

As you outline here, for audio-visual annotation, there are a lot of potential factors that some one might want to take into account when deciding what tool to use, including ease of use, cost, interoperability, and audience. As you touch on throughout, I think cost especially becomes a determining factor. Unless you find a tool that is essential to your work and that you know you will continue to use for a long time, it is really hard to justify paying for the “premium” account. It can also be really off-putting, as you suggest with Animoto, when even the free version of tool comes with severe limitations or annoying “extras” like the obligatory watermark. Restrictions like that definitely do NOT make me want to make me want to pay for the full version of the service. I like how, throughout this post, you pay attention to the different tools’ potential educational and scholarly value. The audience for a platform is so crucial to how someone will evaluate the tool; what might be good for marketing purposes (something like Animoto) may be terrible for the classroom.

By: Lauren

Lauren — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 01:46:30 +0000

Hi Elizabeth,

I was also pretty inspired by the capabilities of Thinglink in terms of sharing, educating, and exploring. I like that the creator has a certain amount of control over organization into channels, but that there is kind of a social media aspect where you can follow other peoples’ public projects, and the group tagging and annotating is such an interesting way to share ideas. Classroom discussion is important, but sometimes more well—thought out ideas come while doing homework or engaging with your peers in an online forum. The group tagging and annotating could also be really helpful with online classes or distance education. The interface kind of reminded me of a more sophisticated/dynamic version of Pinterest! I enjoyed the example you gave from your Thinglink project. I think it was just the right of information not to overwhelm about a specific item, which could be the danger here, but that is up to the discretion of the creator and thankfully not limited by Thinglink itself. I was also so frustrated with annotations showing up on top of the video with no reference to the text anywhere else. It’s like, if you miss it as a viewer, it’s just gone, or an annoying rewinding until the information is there. A more static holding place for the annotation in addition to the time-limited pop-up on the video would really be helpful. I suppose a YouTube annotator could put the annotations in the description, but I don’t know that that would be intuitive for your everyday YouTube user.