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 paying…
Notepad for Kindle Keeps Your Ideas Handy
by Will DeLamater
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 called…
Why Is It So Hard to Cite a Passage on the Kindle?
by Will DeLamater
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 to…
Four Ways the Kindle Browser Helps Educators
by Will DeLamater
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. (It…
The Graphing Calculator and the Kindle
by Will DeLamater
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 my…
Buying Your Kindles Using a Purchase Order
by Will DeLamater
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 means…
Kindle Phone Home: Getting 80 Kindles Ready for Kids, Part 2
by Will DeLamater
Once Kathy’s helper-husband Steve had all the Kindles out of their boxes, numbered with stickies, and charging peacefully, the time had come for Kathy to swing into action. It was time to reconnect each Kindle with the Amazon software that would allow Kathy to manage content for each of the Kindles online. Unlike you or…
Getting 80 Kindles Ready for Kids
by Will DeLamater
I had the pleasure of spending a day with Kathy Parker last week to learn how she sets up all the Kindles the district purchased for Seneca Grade School’s entire eighth class for the coming school year. It is quite a process! I have noted in many previous posts that the Amazon Kindle is first…
More Research Says Bigger Fonts Help Kids Read
by Will DeLamater
Once I started digging in to why everyone seems to crank up the font size on the Kindle, more and more evidence has been sent my way. I want to thank Kerrie Smith, the Australian teacher and LEO at Education.au, for pointing out another significant research compilation on the importance of variable text size. This…
It’s Not the Kindle, Stupid! It’s the Text…
by Will DeLamater
As a blogger on a topic tied to a specific device, the Kindle, it has been easy to overlook the real hero of the ebook revolution, and that is the digital text itself. The virtues of ebooks for schools reside not in the features and benefits of a specific reading device, despite what the pundits…