A signaler, le lancement du projet "Tailoredtexts.com", an "online community aimed at students of foreign-language literature.
Tailoredtexts.com hosts public domain e-books (i.e. whose author has been dead 70+ years) which can be publicly annotated. Readers select a word/phrase/several words (e.g. at the end of each line on a poem) and make a note. This note itself can then be commented on, rated and/or improved. The highest ranked notes are the most visible.
All existing features are free and will remain free forever (we are currently looking into getting a Creative Commons license).
A sample text can be found here (Candide with English notes). N.B. notes can be based around the meaning of a word, the author's grammar or can be analysis/explanations.
I believe that the main advantages are:
- Readers can systematize their note-taking and make them transparent (allowing for quality control via other users, as with, for example, the Wordreference forums).
- Ideas can be shared and key themes discussed with other people right next to the text, i.e. readers study together at the point of reading.
- Definitions of vocabulary can be added, thereby helping those who might get disheartened by having to look up 20+ words a page.
- Focus is entirely on the original language so the temptation of relying on one translation can be banished (N.B. the evaluation/comparison of translations is actively encouraged!)
- Questions about a certain text can be asked to the whole community.
- Once annotations have been added to a text, those annotations will stay freely available forever and so benefit all future readers of the book.
Please come along and have a look. If you were wondering, I originally made the site for my A-level students (I'm a French teacher) but realised during its production that its use could be extended further afield.
If you like the look of it, please feel free to join in and start on a text/share it with any students you have. We have a pretty decent selection of French texts (see catalogue)."