  The increasing demand for software engineering education presents learning
challenges in courses due to the diverse range of topics that require practical
applications, such as programming or software design, all of which are
supported by group work and interaction. Social Annotation (SA) is an approach
to teaching that can enhance collaborative learning among students. In SA, both
students and teachers utilize platforms like Feedback Fruits, Perusall, and
Diigo to collaboratively annotate and discuss course materials. This approach
encourages students to share their thoughts and answers with their peers,
fostering a more interactive learning environment. We share our experience of
implementing social annotation via Perusall as a preparatory tool for lectures
in an introductory programming course aimed at undergraduate students in
Software Engineering. We report the impact of Perusall on the examination
results of 112 students. Our results show that 81% of students engaged in
meaningful social annotation successfully passed the course. Notably, the
proportion of students passing the exam tends to rise as they complete more
Perusall assignments. In contrast, only 56% of students who did not participate
in Perusall discussions managed to pass the exam. We did not enforce mandatory
Perusall participation in the course. Yet, the feedback from our course
evaluation questionnaire reveals that most students ranked Perusall among their
favorite components of the course and that their interest in the subject has
increased.
