Mlearning Article #5 Kindle

“Will the Kindle Change Education?”

This article is about the impact of Kindles on education. The author of this article believes that e-book readers like the Kindle are pushing textbooks closer to extinction. One social studies teacher, Chris Edwards, says he sees in not only as an update of the book, but of the library. Kindles are light, use very little power (because the utilize e-ink instead of back lighting), and can hold an entire library (1,500 plus books). With e-readers, schools can get as many copies of a book as they need, immediately. This enables teachers to provide more options for students who are usually uninterested in reading, and more titles for the ones who read constantly. It also allows teachers to use new teaching strategies. Students can be asked to read, take notes, make clippings, and make connections among those clippings. There would be less photocopying, backpacks would be lighter, and there is the possibility that it would save schools money in the long run. The text-to-speech option on Kindles also has a variety of possibilities. It could help students who have vision problems, language barriers, or lack of reading fluency. Audio books are proven to help reading fluency, especially in kids who are more aural learners. However, there are some downsides. There are some questions as to the Kindle's durability in a classroom setting. Also, there is no output jack to connect to an overhead projector (although this would not be a problem if every student had their own Kindle). Also, Amazon does not allow transfer of content from one user to another. This is problematic when managing devices. Finally, the Kindle format does not allow users to create their own materials by themselves. At the time this article was written, Kindles cost $299, which is prohibitive for most schools (I looked it up-- they are now $79).

I struggled somewhat with this article, in that it seemed very dated. The author mentioned a “rumored” upcoming tablet by Apple, and wondered if the e-readers would prove too one-dimensional in comparison. I think at the time this article was written, very few schools used e-readers-- they were considered a cutting edge technology which may or may not endure. I think a few years on we can say that e-readers (and the Kindle in particular) are here to stay, at least for a while. Tablets have proved to be more useful in a school setting, but with the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet being priced around $200, they are giving the iPad ($500) a run for its money. More and more schools and college students do seem to be using them to rent or buy textbooks because of the lower cost, and the tablet apps are proving to be a very useful and engaging resource in classrooms. I think the author was right: e-readers and tablets are pushing textbooks (and other printed books) towards extinction. However, I think printed books will be with us for a good long while. There is something wonderful and useful about a book that I don't think e-books have been able to replicate-- at least not yet!