Some features that seem very simple from the outside are actually representative of massive steps forward for an entire industry. Such is the case for the highlight feature in NextWork.
What is the Highlight Feature?
The highlight feature gives students the ability to highlight any text in a NextWork project. NextWorkers can choose from eight different colours, and use highlights to identify new concepts, terminology, or difficult parts of the project.
Why is it significant?
In order for students to highlight text in a NextWork project, they each need to have their own version of that project.
Imagine hundreds of students trying to highlight the same piece of paper—it would quickly become chaos.
To solve this we create a copy of a NextWork project for every student when they interact with the project through highlights, answering tasks, simplifying notes, etc. This is a big deal.
Currently, a student’s online learning experience is limited to a read-only experience of a master version of a course. This makes sense, because you want the teacher to have control over the content that is published to a student. Unfortunately, this means there are inherit limitations in the level of personalisation that the teacher/company can provide.
If everyone is staring at the same piece of paper, you can’t possibly change it to the level of detail required to perfectly match every individual. At best, you can provide broad groupings or options for people to choose from. In such a scenario, students are still stuck with an average-suits-no-one experience.
A new era; Read → Write → Own
Building the highlight feature represents the beginning of a new era of personalised learning, where everyone can have their own version of learning material and customise it to suit them exactly. Without this infrastructure, creating a true personalised learning experience is very difficult.
Put another way, this feature moves us from an age of read-only to an age of edit/write online learning. This sort of edit functionality is typically only found in documentation apps like Notion, Google Docs, or Canva. Early versions of personalisation in Khan Academy (progress tracking) and Coursera (adding notes) focus on adding layers to static material rather than providing true personal ownership or editable versions.
Looking beyond the edit/write era, the own era will give NextWorker’s the ability to create and own their personal brand, using this to showcase their skills. There’s strong parallels here with Chris Dixon’s book ‘Read Write Own’ on blockchain…it’s interesting to think of a future where we build ways to validate real-time skills using blockchain. While the "read → write → own" concept is seen in documentation and content creation apps, applying it to online learning is rare, making this a significant step forward.
I’d love to hear what small features you’ve built that have represented a much larger, unrecognised, step forward in your industry.
