Let me explain. Amazon makes it possible for you to read a book that you have purchased on whatever reading device that you happen to have with you at any time, as long as two requirements are fulfilled:

Requirement 1: Amazon software must be installed on all reading devices.
Requirement 2: An internet connection must be present.

When these two requirements are met, Amazon allows you to access your whole library of books that you have purchased through the Kindle store no matter where you am or what device you happen to have with you at the time.

Very cool.

For me, it means being able to fire up Drive or How We Decide or Iconoclast while waiting for a haircut or for a movie. My Michael Connelly novel is with me during rain delays and long lines at the supermarket. Synchronization means that I have achieved a state of multiple-platform nirvana wherein all my books are with me all the time.

Even better, I don’t have to remember what page I was on in any of them. The mother ship at Amazon always offers to “synch to furthest page read” when I open a book on a different device than the one I was reading on last time. This way, I never lose my place and the reading experience becomes, as Jeff Bezos would say, “frictionless.”

Except when my wife is reading the same book on her Kindle. Then, the “furthest page read” may not be MY furthest page read; rather, it may be HER furthest page read. The synchronization feature also means that her highlights appear in “my” copy of the book. In this case, the ability to share books among multiple Kindles/devices registered to the same account creates a conflict with the ability to synchronize one’s reading among those various devices.

This conflict raises a special problem for teachers who may be leveraging the ability to load books on multiple devices and make more texts available to more students for the same price. What to do?

I only recently learned that you can “de-synchronize” the Kindles and other devices registered to a single account, and if the downside of synchronization is just too great–Josh keeps underlining all the text in everybody’s copy of Old Yeller–then it is easy to take care of the problem.

Just go to the page at Amazon called “Manage My Kindle” and scroll to the bottom, where you will see a link named “Manage synchronization between devices.” This is where you will find the following guidance from the Amazon team (see below, #1):

“You should turn synchronization off only if:
* You and someone else are reading the same book, AND
* The Kindles are registered to a single account”

The recommendation seems sound, if a little bossy. So many advantages of the Amazon Kindle system flow from the synchronization feature that it only makes sense to keep it on (which is the default setting) unless it is creating a problem for you.

If you decide to “de-synchronize” because you want each device in the classroom (or at the house) to operate independently of the others, then look for the button on the right that allows you to “Turn Synchronization Off” (see illustration, #2).

Click for larger image

Remember, teachers, that turning off synchronization does not in any way interfere with your ability to load books onto Kindle, or with the students’ ability to highlight passages or make notes. Those highlights and notes will simply be stored “locally,” saved only on the specific Kindle on which they were made. They can still be accessed by your or the students by tethering the Kindle to a computer with the USB cord and accessing the text file where those notes and highlights are stored.

Now, sometimes it might be cool to have multiple students commenting and highlighting a book across multiple devices. That might even become a best practice for Kindle/ereader use in the classroom. A literature circle or book club of kids take on a read together, share their notes and highlights, and then each create a summary piece of writing explaining a passage or two that received particular attention from the group. Or make the marked up text a group project, finding six passages that seem significant and each making a comment that the teacher could read and respond to or even grade.

Hint: one special power of the synchronization feature is that the highlights and comments that are made in the text by an individual or a group are available for viewing online here after login. Sign in and look at the column to the right; there you will find a icons for “Highlights” and “Notes.” Students could be required to put their name at the end of each note they create, and the teacher could browse these notes easily without have the Kindles handy or any file transfer reqquired.

So, in the end, whether you keep your devices synchronized or not just “depends” on the kind of reading experience multiple readers on a single Amazon Kindle account want to have.

In order to solve my problem, I thought I would just convert and upload a singe page document and then keep my notes on the Kindle. Then I could view them in “My Notes and Marks” from the document menu using the scroll bar clicker, or save them to my computer through the “My Clippings” file that is kept as a text file on the Kindle itself.

Next, interested as I am in how documents can be properly formatted for the Kindle, or “Kindle Optimized,” I decided to create a document that could help keep my notes organized. What I came up with is the “notepad” document. Once it is loaded on your Kindle, this is what the screen will look like:

On this one, I have made one note, and you can see the little “note” icon next to the Note #1 text highlighted. When you click the menu and select “My Notes and Marks,” you will see the notes listed in order. You can also view (and edit) the note by selecting it with the scroll wheel; if you access your note this way, you will also be given the option to delete it.

Of course, editing or deleting a note will not affect the text of the Notepad document itself.

Nifty, huh? I have included this document for free download on the Downloads page.

Enjoy!

Blessedly, the designers anticipated the need for the @ and / characters–these occupy their own keys on the physical keyboard.

Also, when the input box pops up for you to input a note or other text, there are several options for special characters shown across the top of the box. Each requires that you press the ALT key and another key to create the special character. ALT+6, for example, creates a question mark, ALT+8 a colon, and so forth.