Clipping limit? An oxymoron? Those of us who love to mark up our books sometimes go overboard. I remember packing some of my old college textbooks and seeing how most of the text was highlighted in bright yellow. How does that help? an older and wiser me mused. Enter the age of digital text. No…
Kindle’s Impact on Student Reading
What’s wrong with Clean Reader? Maybe nothing…
by Will DeLamater
When I asked educators about the usefulness of Clean Reader, the responses were definitive. Teachers don’t like it. It smacks of censorship. It dilutes the purpose of art, or worse–it bastardizes it in the name of correctness. One teacher said that the app is “a violation of all of the principles of intellectual freedom that…
Is the Kindle or Kindle Fire the Best Device for Schools?
by Will DeLamater
Related content: How to Clean Up Your Kindle Fire As with everything, the answer to this question comes from the answer to another question, which is “What is your goal for the use of the devices?” The best Kindle for each school is the one that best helps it accomplish its educational mission. So, Kindle…
Do kids learn more from print texts than from digital ones?
by Will DeLamater
The answer may surprise you. The debate over whether physical or digital reading is better for kids is warming up. We are long past the days when the claims for print books were primarily aesthetic; nowadays, you need data to prove a point. Researchers are now suggesting that certain aspects of physical, print books actually…
Reading Retrofit: A Tool Called Spritz
by Will DeLamater
From the beginning, EduKindle has really been about the meetup between digital technology and reading. Not so much the impact of technology on the publication of text, although that has a long, long history that has involved advances in technology at every step (see Mr. Gutenberg and his press, or Mr. Hammurabi and his stele).…
Big Library Read Program Makes Unlimited Copies of Kids Book Available for Download
by Will DeLamater
Overdrive is using its position as “middleman” between the publishers and the libraries in a way that truly benefits readers. It’s “Big Library Read” program makes unlimited copies of a book it selects available through public libraries that use its service, instead of limiting the number of checkouts to the number of copies that the…
The Growing World of Worldreader, Part 2
by Will DeLamater
The Growing World of Worldreader
by Will DeLamater
Had an opportunity to catch up with David Risher, founder and head of Worldreader, the group that is transforming literacy around the world by sending Kindles loaded with books to the remotest reaches of the planet. He sounds like he is having a blast. And who wouldn’t be, when the CEO of a little internet…
Why do teens prefers phones to Kindles as e-readers?
by Will DeLamater
The recent Pew report on Young Americans’ Reading and Library Habits contains a number of great take-aways, including the news that young people frequent libraries at an unexpectedly high rate. But another finding has emerged that may have an impact on the way that schools think about pleasure reading and reading instruction both inside and outside…
The New Kindle Lineup: What It Means to Educators
by Will DeLamater
Just a quick update on the new lineup of Kindles announced earlier this month: as ever, the new Kindle models have one key audience in mind – the individual consumer. Backlight for reading in bed, integration with a vast media library, seamless purchasing opportunities, high resolution screen, touch navigation, whiter backgrounds, the works! All improvements…