Marks, Digits, and Power

I’ve gone back to explore earlier course material for my next couple of reflections to make sure I’m catching the core ideas I missed earlier.

This week was about social annotation with Remi Kalir.

The most striking point Kalir made is that “digital” comes from digits, our fingers. Whether you’re using a pen in a margin or a keyboard on a blog, you’re using your digits to make a mark. It’s the same fundamental act. Kalir argues that most online learning is broken because it separates the reading from the talking. You read a PDF in one window and discuss it in another. Social annotation changes this by putting the conversation directly on the text. The text isn’t just homework; it’s the place where the discussion happens. This matters because annotation isn’t neutral. It’s an act of power. Who is allowed to mark a text? Who owns those marks? Even AI is built on the backs of “ghost workers”, people in underpaid conditions who have to annotate data to train the models we use.

In my Excel project, I’m essentially annotating my daily life with data. By building it myself, I’m making sure I’m the one in control of those marks. Real digital literacy is realizing that every mark you make is a way of writing yourself into the world, and you should probably be the one who owns it.