Learning through shared note-taking visualisations in the classroom

School classrooms are seeing an emergence of ubiquitous display technology in the form of devices like personal laptops and shared classroom displays. These devices form a solid foundation for technology-assisted collaborative learning. We present a field experiment (N=66) that investigates whether a shared wall display that provides real-time note-taking visualisations is able to increase student interaction and learning/information retention. We compare this first experiment condition of laptops and a shared-display (C1) to the use of just pen and paper (C2) and just a laptop (C3). Our results from a between-subjects study with high school students indicates that interaction is significantly increased in condition C1 compared to C2 and C3, and that student learning favours C2 and C1 over C3. This indicates that although technology can be used to enhance learning, personal laptops are not by themselves a precursor to increased learning, and that consideration is needed for whole-of-classroom solutions in order to enhance student interaction and learning.