Will the Kindle Change Education?

In the article, Will the Kindle Change Education, the author simply addresses this question. He talks about the positive aspects of the kindle such as how light it is, the ability to access almost any book from almost anywhere, and simply the convenience of the number of books that students could have access to. Educators also feel that the Kindles text-to-speech function could be beneficial for those students with vision problems, language barriers, and lack of reading fluency. The author also addresses a few problems with the kindles as well. This includes their durability. The kindle is supposed to be able to survive repeated drops from 30 inches, however the author mentions that one of the kindles he uses in his classroom was broken shortly after receiving it when a students accidentally dropped it. Another issue with the kindle is that of content transfer. Amazon limits the number of kindles that can have access to books on a single account to six. Also there is no output jack to connect to an overhead projector, which is key in a classroom setting. Over all, the author concludes that the price of the kindle is too high, when compared with the classroom hurdles. The use of the kindle in a classroom setting is very limited.

As I said in my previous post, I do see a great benefit in using kindles, or something similar to kindles in the classroom. However, the issue of durability is something to consider, especially for he price that it costs to buy a kindle. If they can be easily broken, then the investment may not be a good one, especially if students are being allowed to take them home and carry them in their back backs. Also the fact that there is no way to display the text to the entire class through an overhead projector is a big downside from teaching perspective. Also the cost is fairly high, with one kindle costing more than most teachers are allotted for their classroom per year. The article mentioned the text-to-speech feature as being beneficial for students with a lack of reading fluency. I am hesitant to agree with this. While I do see the benefit of a student who has trouble reading being able to have the book read to them as they follow along, I feel that this could actually hinder their ability and motivation to learn how to read. If a student knows that he can just have the device read the book to him, then why learn how to read at all?

This article presented many good arguments, and based on strictly this articles research I would say I agree with the authors conclusion that while e-readers could be a great investment for schools, the cost is going to be the biggest hurdle to overcome at this time.