In classroom sessions where I use presentations, prior to the session, I provide the students with access to a PDF of the presentation in which I have replaced select keywords, definitions, and other important items with blank lines. The goal is to keep the students engaged by having them write in the missing parts.

Most students print paper copies of these PDFs and fill in the blanks on those paper copies. But the past couple of semesters, a handful of students who own MS Surface or tablet devices with a stylus have been bringing those devices to class, downloading the PDF to their device, and using their stylus to write their notes directly onto the PDF.

This practice might provide the best of both worlds:

• These students (writing with a stylus on a tablet or Surface) would seemingly be engaging the same cognitive processes as students who are writing longhand on a piece of paper.

• These students also have to write a lot less than students who (for whatever reason) do not avail themselves of the PDF and try to write everything down. That should provide them with extra cognitive space to synthesize and understand the material.

• These students would have most of the advantages of those with a laptop -- searchable notes, access to Internet resources, etc.

• One disadvantage is that unlike laptop users, these students cannot code directly on their device. However, this can be mitigated if the instructor has students use their browsers to access a web/cloud-based IDE (e.g., Cloud9, Koding, etc.).

I don't have any solid data on how these students perform compared to students who use pencil-and-paper (or laptops) -- the number of these students is too small to generate statistically significant results -- but if the numbers were sufficiently large, it would be interesting to study how these students do compared to a) their peers using pencil-and-paper, and b) students taking notes on laptops.

In classroom sessions where I use presentations, prior to the session, I provide the students with access to a PDF of the presentation in which I have replaced select keywords, definitions, and other important items with blank lines. The goal is to keep the students engaged by having them write in the missing parts.

Most students print paper copies of these PDFs and fill in the blanks on those paper copies. But the past couple of semesters, a handful of students who own MS Surface or tablet devices with a stylus have been bringing those devices to class, downloading the PDF to their device, and using their stylus to write their notes directly onto the PDF.

This practice might provide the best of both worlds:

• These students (writing with a stylus on a tablet or Surface) would seemingly be engaging the same cognitive processes as students who are writing longhand on a piece of paper.

• These students also have to write a lot less than students who (for whatever reason) do not avail themselves of the PDF and try to write everything down. That should provide them with extra cognitive space to synthesize and understand the material.

• These students would have most of the advantages of those with a laptop -- searchable notes, access to Internet resources, etc.

• One disadvantage is that unlike laptop users, these students cannot code directly on their device. However, this can be mitigated if the instructor has students use their browsers to access a web/cloud-based IDE (e.g., Cloud9, Koding, etc.).

Of course the Surface/tablet users also suffer some of the same disadvantages as laptop users (e.g., distractions, temptation to multitask, etc.).

I don't have any solid data on how these students perform compared to students who use pencil-and-paper (or laptops) -- the number of these students is too small to generate statistically significant results -- but if the numbers were sufficiently large, it would be interesting to study how these students do compared to a) their peers using pencil-and-paper, and b) students taking notes on laptops.