University of Washington Computer Science & Engineering just announced that first year graduate students of the Department would get each get a free Kindle DX, and free textbooks for the Kindle DX.
In Fall 2009, each incoming University of Washington Computer Science & Engineering graduate student will receive a Kindle DX, Amazon’s latest wireless reading device, to use in place of traditional printed textbooks and research papers in their first-year graduate courses. The students also will receive textbooks and other required reading materials free of charge for the Kindle DX.
They also mentioned that the Foster School of Business at UW would also be participating in the Kindle DX Review program. The aims are -
- Explore the use of the Kindle DX in classes.
- Review strengths and weaknesses of using the Kindle DX relative to physical textbooks.
They say (on the Kindle DX Pilot program page) -
In addition to reducing textbook cost and backpack weight, use of the Kindle DX should dramatically reduce printing and its environmental impact and cost — we estimate that the typical first-year UW CSE graduate student prints 1,000 pages of research papers as reading material for courses. We will conduct usability assessments with a specific focus on the Kindle DX’s annotation facilities, under the direction of Professor Charlotte Lee from UW’s Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering. UW CSE students and faculty also will participate in assessments in cooperation with all participating institutions.
The UW CSE pilot is under the direction of Professor Ed Lazowska. Approximately forty graduate students will participate.
Kindle DX Pilot at UW
They also list the courses for which materials will be made available on the Kindle and its a healthy cross-section of 13 courses.
At the same time Incremental Blogger asks – Will K-12 schools adopt Kindle DX and other eReaders?
His concerns about Kindle DX trials -
- Universities will be slow at adopting the Kindle DX.
- The number of units being reviewed is too low.
are valid ones. However, Universities can hardly be expected to be leading the charge – its parents and students that will determine how successful the Kindle DX really is.
Finally, everyone seems to be focused on college trials – however, school children are an equally important market and its strange to see Amazon not target the Kindle DX at them.
Filed under: kindle dx Tagged: | kindle dx college, kindle dx textbook
You mentioned that the Foster Business School will be participating in the Kindle DX Review program as well…but how are they allocating them Kindles to the students? Are the business undergraduates involved?
Melia, as far as I understand its only for grad students. all the articles mention only grad students. you could check out the uw cs department page describing the pilot program and get in touch with the Prof in charge to confirm/check if there’s a way to get it as an undergraduate.