Will the Kindle Change Education?
This
article published by scholastic discusses the benefits and drawbacks of
implementing the use of Kindle E-readers in the K-12 classroom. Some of the
attractive features of the Kindle are its size, lightweight feel, ability to
read in bright light, and long battery life. Kindles are also able to hold up
to 1,500 books. The ability to hold a vast amount of books is an obvious plus,
but so is the ease in which students can download popular titles. Kindles also
have a text-to-speech feature that reads texts allowed. This would be
beneficial to students with disabilities and students who understand material
better through auditory means.
Some
of the potential issues that have been seen with the use of Kindles in the
classroom are their durability, their ability to share information via
projector, and sharing information between kindles. Lastly, the most significant hurdle and
probably biggest prevention of Kindles in the classroom is their cost. The
baseline price for the Kindle is $299 and the average book price is $10.
I
enjoy reading from my Kindle, and I think Kindles would be a beneficial
classroom accessory. Kindles may not be appropriate for students in younger
elementary grades since they need to gain experience with print and may need to learn to respect classroom materials. However, in the middle
grades and on I believe Kindles would be helpful for several reasons. Students
go through texts much quicker in the upper grades and Kindles allow for less
book storage and quick access to new texts. I also really like how Kindles have
the text-to-speech option. I have used this feature in my car as an audio book and
I think students could benefit from it as well. Overall I do not feel that
Kindles are a current necessity for our schools though. While I do think they would be
helpful and potentially motivating for students to read, unfortunately I do not envision them
being a top priority in next years budget.
http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3752572
Kelly, good points! I think there needs to be a balance if you are going to use them in your classroom. Kids that are not fluent readers could benefit from e-readers but I feel nothing beats the back-and-forth communication between parent/teacher and child. I read somewhere that young kids with too much exposure to e-readers can cause comprehension and vocabulary skills to be lower. So there needs to be a balance. Great post!
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