E-Readers Creeping In!

It's now official.  Parents are asking me if they can buy their kids Kindles, Nooks, etc, so students can do their reading and their post-it note responses electronically!  On the one hand, I love it!  I am so happy this day is finally here.

Four years ago I discovered the Kindle.  I showed an Amazon promotional video to students and they were stunned.  I asked them to write on the questions, "How would school be different if every student had a Kindle?"  They wrote thougtfully about the effects this invention could have on student's organization and motivation. Although it was a plausible scenario, it presented as a futuristic dream.  It amazed me that year after year I could recycle the assignment and still, it was a pie-in-the-sky vision.  

Last year one or two students read books on their ipod touches. I found it easier to review post-its, because you can view all "notes" at once without having to flip through the pages searching for the notes. You can still refer back to the page the student is commenting on to better understand the student's thinking.  The students who did this were such voracious readers I didn't worry that they'd be on the internet. I passed by their tables a few times to check and never had an issue.   

Now that E-readers are becoming more available and commonplace, I couldn't be happier about it.  I do have to figure out what changes I will need to make to accommodate them in the classroom.  Clearly, E-readers that have internet and games on them such as Ipads and the new Nooks pose new opportunities for distractions.  There may also be organizational changes to the structures around reading I use, which I designed over the years with real-paper books.

Perhaps the changes will make new fertile territory for student writing--no longer a fanciful exercise, I could truly use students' advice on how to make E-readers work in my program!

 

[image credit: impactlab.net]

Comments

[Lisa]

We were lucky enough to have 2 Nooks donated and we've decided to only load the free classics for students to read. If they want to load books for purchase, they have to bring in a gift card and have the teacher load it. This prevents the wrong kind of books on there.

[Gary S. Stager]

If the book is any good, it's distracting too.

[Gary S. Stager]

I'm wondering what the wrong kind of books Barnes and Noble sells?

[Mark]

Thank you for this post. I'm a teacher and am starting to use Kindles in my class. What's your method of checking annotations?

In a later post, you say that you have students email all their notes to you. What's the best way of doing that? How do you explain it to students?

Thank you again.

[Ariel Sacks]

Mark, at this point, students just hand in their e-reader or show me during class. They press "notes", and all of their notes are viewable at the same time. I just scroll through them. This seems to be the case with all of the various E-readers out there.

What I WANT, but currently don't have, is a function that would allow students to just email me their notes. I think you misunderstood my other post. It's still just on my wish list. Please share anything interesting you find with the Kindles in your class! Do all students have them?

[Belstaff Coats]

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[ski instructor courses]

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