willd

How to share e-books among as many readers as possible is a matter of great interest to educators. Right now, there are basically three ways to leverage e-books to increase distribution of titles in schools: 1.  Sharing (books among devices on one account) 2.  Lending and Borrowing (books among all users) 3.  Library Lending...
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One of the most consistent questions over the years about Kindle management concerns how to disable the ability to make purchases directly from the device. For educators, this is almost a show-stopper with Kindle. This uber-consumer reading device, designed with book purchases in mind, makes it just too darned easy to buy a book,...
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When my NOOKcolor arrived right on time yesterday, I thought about calling this post “Barnes and Noble Pulls an Amazon.” What I mean by that is, for the first time in the brief history of the universe, B&N got the drop on their cross-country rivals. And part of how they did that was by...
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The free and open textbook industry has made great strides in the past few years. There are numerous open source textbook projects cranking away right now, and one of them Flat World Knowledge, even intends to build a business on the concept. A quick Googling of the words “open source textbook” will give you...
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Stopped in at Borders this week, drawn by some big signs promoting the new Velocity Cruz Reader, a device I had heard about but so faintly and distantly that I assumed it must be no big deal. And though the device itself needs work (and what ereader doesn’t?), I think that anyone who isn’t...
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When I got my first Kindle 1 in 2008, I thought that it would be nice if I had a way to capture ideas while reading, without having to leave a “note” inside the book I was reading, where it might be difficult to find later on. So I created a little “utility” document...
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Since the first days of the Kindle, readers have been somewhat undone by the absence of page numbers in the text of their Kindle “books.” Reactions range from bemused to outraged. Some purchasers claim to have sent their Kindles back because of this formatting peculiarity, er, innovation. Others say, no big deal; they seem...
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For today’s students who are acclimated to high speed browsing, the experimental Kindle browser will seem impossibly awkward and slow. Longer web pages are displayed and accessed using the “next page” button, and sites with sidebars or any kind of fancy formatting will display in a seemingly helter skelter way on the Kindle browser....
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Few pieces of educational equipment have achieved the kind of rapid and widespread adoption in schools from middle school to college as the graphing calculator. Introduced by Casio in 1985, the device has been showing up on school supply lists for quite some time, and as a parent I have personally purchased several for...
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The first hint of the problem started popping up at the end of the school year in May. Kathy Burnette, a member of the Kindle Educators Group over at the Ning, summed up her problem in a post: ARGH! We are not allowed to purchase gift cards using our purchase order accounts and that...
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