Does Classroom Presenter Software Change Learning Outcomes?

With support from Microsoft Research, we conducted a semester-long experiment to assess whether using Classroom Presenter software on Tablet PCs in our CS453 Electronic Commerce Technology course had any measurable effect on learning outcomes. This class of 52 students divided (by self-selection) into three groups: 19 students used Tablets; 20 used laptops; 13 had neither. We utilized Classroom Presenter 2, OneNote, and a private wireless network throughout the semester. We assessed student learning by way of a pretest/posttest plus midterm and finnl exams. We documented student opinions (anonymous written responses as well as open discussions) at midterm and again at the end of the course. The students´ qualitative evaluations reported that they saw the potential of Tablets and Presenter, but they were critical of our infrastructure that repeatedly lost synchrony between the instructor´s and students´ computers. The quantitative data showed that the Tablet users performed slightly better than the laptop and traditional students with regard to final grades and their absolute performance on pre- and posttests