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Friday, January 29, 2010
Emerging Technology 1- The Amazon Kindle
So I was sitting in a training for a teacher thing, and I notice on break one of my teachers starring at a thing book-looking thing. Being intrigued, I went over there to ask him what he had. He said it was a Kindle. I had never heard of such a piece of technology, but it looked nifty. He showed me in the little amount of time we had what it was, how it worked and gave examples of what you could do with such a thing. So let me share with you what I learned, how it could be implemented in education and any issues that could arise with using such a piece of technology.
The Amazon Kindle- This device is hardware, but also software that supports e-books and other media that is digital. You can download different types of media into this device via Amazon or other digital media online sites. Not only can you view downloaded material, you can also use the Kindle to peruse the Internet for free!
I could see this technology being GREAT in the classroom!!! Think about a school where there are no textbooks, but Kindles. The amount of weight that is lifted from a student because they don't have to carry around textbooks, the amount of information they could have in front of them! I could see this being used two ways. One, every child gets their own or each class has a set to use as they need. According to their website, there are over 200,000 books available to download. Prices range from $4.99 for older titles to new ones costing as much as $15! That's really not that bad. Think about how this would push the textbook publishing companies into the 21st century!
Here's how you use it. Follow this link for a great virtual tour of how to use the Kindle and it's features!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAlxAawR3NI
Some limitations to this technology would be that you cannot expand the amount of memory it contains. So you would at points have to transfer some books off to add new ones if the memory chip was full. The Kindle also does not allow the user to organize the books into files so you would have to scroll down your complete index every time you want to find something. You could not organize your downloads into subjects if you wanted to. I could see that be a limitation as a teacher because I would want to group things by units. If the battery fails on the Kindle you must send the whole unit in for repair because it has no removable battery. Lastly, what if a students were to break one? It would have to be replaced and the cost of one is over $350. That's as much as some schools pay for laptops. There are many technology grants out there that go unused every year, so if one were to be broken, a teacher could probably find the money somewhere to replace it if the family cannot. I would think before using the parents would need to sign some sort of agreement to pay in the event of purposeful breakage or misuse.
Resources:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/09/whats-new-with-the-kindle-2/
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/03/090803fa_fact_baker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle
The Amazon Kindle- This device is hardware, but also software that supports e-books and other media that is digital. You can download different types of media into this device via Amazon or other digital media online sites. Not only can you view downloaded material, you can also use the Kindle to peruse the Internet for free!
I could see this technology being GREAT in the classroom!!! Think about a school where there are no textbooks, but Kindles. The amount of weight that is lifted from a student because they don't have to carry around textbooks, the amount of information they could have in front of them! I could see this being used two ways. One, every child gets their own or each class has a set to use as they need. According to their website, there are over 200,000 books available to download. Prices range from $4.99 for older titles to new ones costing as much as $15! That's really not that bad. Think about how this would push the textbook publishing companies into the 21st century!
Here's how you use it. Follow this link for a great virtual tour of how to use the Kindle and it's features!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAlxAawR3NI
Some limitations to this technology would be that you cannot expand the amount of memory it contains. So you would at points have to transfer some books off to add new ones if the memory chip was full. The Kindle also does not allow the user to organize the books into files so you would have to scroll down your complete index every time you want to find something. You could not organize your downloads into subjects if you wanted to. I could see that be a limitation as a teacher because I would want to group things by units. If the battery fails on the Kindle you must send the whole unit in for repair because it has no removable battery. Lastly, what if a students were to break one? It would have to be replaced and the cost of one is over $350. That's as much as some schools pay for laptops. There are many technology grants out there that go unused every year, so if one were to be broken, a teacher could probably find the money somewhere to replace it if the family cannot. I would think before using the parents would need to sign some sort of agreement to pay in the event of purposeful breakage or misuse.
Resources:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/09/whats-new-with-the-kindle-2/
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/03/090803fa_fact_baker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle
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