Return to Current Issue Evaluation of Adobe ® Presenter as a Teaching Tool

Abstract: Adobe ® Presenter software provides educators with a tool to create narrated distance learning presentations. This article describes Adobe ® Presenter's many features and explains which most strongly affect learning. Six Adobe ® Presenter trainings were presented to 62 volunteers preparing to provide information at a public outreach event. One month after the event, volunteers were surveyed about their ability to learn from the online training and to apply the information in their volunteer work. Although all features of the Adobe ® Presenter software were highly rated, questions embedded within the presentation and the voice-recorded narration were rated as particularly important to learning. Adobe ® Presenter (Adobe Macromedia Software LCC, 2008), part of the Adobe ® Connect ™ Enterprise Server Program, is useful software for creating prerecorded narrated Microsoft PowerPoint (Microsoft Corporation, 2003) presentations that can be viewed through any Web browser or from a compact disc. This tool allows Extension educators to make information widely available without the time and travel costs associated with a live presentation. Like most software, Adobe ® Presenter offers a variety of features. The questions arise: which features enhance the learning experience?; which distract?; and which add little educational value to the training while taking up the educator's time? In any Extension presentation, live or prerecorded, the most important outcome is for students to understand