iBot Now Has Annotations — And It Changes Everything for Online Students
Back when I was at school, we studied from textbooks. All the important stuff was underlined. If, like me, you bought a used book, you’d also inherit the annotated content from the previous owner — a trail of highlights, scribbles, and margin notes left behind by whoever came before you.
Studying by highlighting content, scribbling notes in the margins, and making your mark on the page was just how we studied. It was personal. It was yours.
Now imagine being able to do exactly that in Moodle.
Well, with iBot — that’s now possible.
Introducing Annotations in iBot
We’re excited to announce that iBot now has Annotation built in, and it works across any page in Moodle. Whether you’re reading a course resource, working through a lesson, or reviewing content before an assessment — you can now mark it up just like you would a physical textbook.
How Annotations Work
iBot gives you a set of familiar, intuitive tools right inside your Moodle environment:
- Highlight — Select any text and highlight it in your chosen colour. Perfect for flagging key terms, important definitions, or anything you know will come up again.
- Underline — The classic student tool. Draw attention to the sentences that matter most without the full weight of a highlight.
- Sticky Notes — Add a typed note directly onto the page. Think of these as your margin comments — questions to follow up on, summaries in your own words, reminders to revisit something.
- Pop-up Comments — Attach a comment to a specific piece of content that reveals itself when you hover or click. Great for adding context without cluttering the page.
- Tags — Label and categorise your annotations so you can find them easily later. Tag something as “exam focus”, “needs revision”, or whatever works for your study style.
Your annotations are saved automatically with the page. The next time you come back, everything is exactly where you left it. And because iBot knows who made each annotation, you only ever see your own notes — no confusion with classmates or other users.
Why This Matters for Students Studying Online
For a lot of students — especially those who grew up studying from physical books — the move to online learning can feel like something is missing. You can read the content, but it doesn’t feel like your content. There’s no sense of ownership over the material.
Annotation changes that.
When you highlight a passage, you’re making a decision: this matters. When you write a note in the margin, you’re having a conversation with the content. When you come back to a page covered in your own markings, your brain already has a head start — it remembers the act of marking it, not just the words on the screen.
This is especially true for older students returning to study after years in the workforce. If your learning instincts were shaped by textbooks and physical notes, iBot’s annotation tools will feel immediately familiar. You don’t need to change how you think — the technology adapts to you.
Your Notes, Your Way
What makes iBot’s annotation feature feel genuinely different is that it respects the way you study.
There’s no single right way to use it. Some students will highlight everything in yellow and come back later to add tags. Others will use pop-up comments to question the material as they go — a great habit for critical thinking. Some will treat sticky notes like a revision diary, building up a set of personal summaries over the course of a module.
However you use it, the result is the same: your Moodle content becomes your study space — personalised, annotated, and ready when you return to it.