Media Annotation Tools

We build and adapt media annotation tools to make possible a range of new teaching and learning techniques in which text, video and images can be studied, excerpted, and shared remotely in multimedia essays and discussions.

Cross Media Annotation System

Our development team has developed the “Cross Media Annotation System” (XMAS). The application is comprised of a multimedia essay editor, a discussion component, and an annotation workspace for various media (DVDs, images, texts, streaming video). XMAS has been in use at MIT for several terms and has worked very well to support online student discussions that include video examples, multimedia essays, in class presentations and online instructor comment on student work. Instructors at Vanderbilt University, University of Queensland, University of Hawaii, and Bentley University have had success in using XMAS in their humanities courses.

Classroom System: HyperCard Driven Laserdisc Players

Our first project, funded in 1992, the Classroom System aimed to link all Shakespeare films available on laserdisc to electronic texts and to develop a variety of tutorials and lexica in a system that allows students to write multimedia essays that include an unlimited number of precisely defined “live” video citations. Presently, 38 complete films are linked to text, including Oliver and Zeffirelli Hamlet, Olivier and McKellen Richard III, Polanski and Welles Macbeth, Kurosawa’s adaptations of King Lear (Ran) and Macbeth (Throne of Blood).