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[Founder Dan Doernberg turned NowComment over to Paul Allison ( NowComment user 9281) in August 2018. Here's the text of the announcement:]

NowComment has been a 10-year labor of love for me: visualizing a better way for groups/classes to discuss texts, turning that concept into (free!) software, extending it by integrating video and images, and then watching it become more and more popular in K12 and Higher Ed classrooms worldwide.

But it's time for fresh blood and new ideas.

Nationally-known educator and EdTech expert Paul Allison, newly retired from K12 teaching after 31 years, is assuming stewardship of the NowComment website and educational community. He brings a wealth of experience, friendships, and institutional connections to NowComment:

• Teacher Consultant & technology liaison for the New York City Writing Project since 1990
• Educator Innovator & consultant for the National Writing Project since 2000
• Recognized as a “Tech Leader of the Year” by Tech & Learning Magazine (2009)
• Co-founder (2003) & facilitator of Youth Voices (with other National Writing Project teachers)
• Teachers Teaching Teachers (going strong after almost 600 weekly episodes, including this September 2015 NowComment episode)

Paul has evaluated hundreds and hundreds of software tools over the years, and he finds NowComment uniquely able to stimulate conversation, engagement, and deep collaboration and learning among students. He's been an active proponent of NowComment since 2014, posting 400+ public documents for his students and colleagues.

Paul and I have been working together since Spring to ensure a smooth transition. Please share your energy and ideas for improving NowComment with him ([email protected]), and please be as helpful and encouraging to him as you have been to me.

Thank you for ten wonderful years!

Dan Doernberg, NowComment Founder
[email protected]

PS-- Paul and I be celebrating the transition with a special "NowComment: Looking Back/Looking Ahead" episode of TeachersTeachingTeachers on Wednesday Sept. 5th (8pm EST); take in the livestream and share your NowComment questions and experiences with us, or catch the YouTube playback afterwards!

In her "Peer-to-Peer Review" column Barbara Fister wrote:
...we just read and discussed Vannevar Bush's 1945 essay, “As We May Think,” in which he sketches out a means of organizing and sharing information using “trails of association” rather than indexing. To dabble in the concept of “trails of association,” we used a tool called Nowcomment to share our reactions. Students found it interesting to discuss the work this way, and see one another's insights as they were reading the essay. Library Journal, March 2012

Amy Campbell, Assistant Director of Duke University's Center for Instructional Technology, wrote "If you would like your students to discuss and annotate documents online in a way which allows rich conversations to develop, NowComment may be the tool you are looking for." CIT blog, October 2011.

Fred Rossoff of Columbia University's EdLab (the educational technology arm of Teacher's College) gave NowComment a nice review:
"strong case for the educational uses of NowComment… looks like it could create the space needed for deeper discussions, by allowing simultaneous organized interactions." http://edlab.tc.columbia.edu/index.php?q=node/6334, August 2010.