Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

Charles Crowell, Associate Professor  at Southern Vermont College, has an excellent post up where he reviews the use of the Kindle in Education. There were two things that stood out for me -

1. He contrasts the Traditional Pedagogy, and Kindle’s impact on the Budget in that situation, with the budgetary and pedagogical impact of an approach built around the Kindle.   
2. His conclusion was really interesting too -
   

   The prospects here are compelling. With a little reconsideration of how we use and frame simple educational tools like textbooks, we can not only significantly lower some of the costs of higher education, but also enhance our pedagogical practices and educational outcomes

A series of posts on Using Kindle in Education

Will start writing out a few posts on using the Kindle in education – for educators, and especially for parents.

The critical flaw that critics of the Kindle are making is that they are not considering -

1. Its a developing technology.  
2. Its going up against the status quo.

Instead of looking at what the Kindle could do for education if given the chance (as Prof. Crowell is doing in his article) people are asking why the Kindle isn’t a perfect solution already.

Kindle in Education – Bigger in Schools than Colleges

One of the biggest potential uses of the Kindle in education is in schools. While people focus on colleges, because of the costs of college textbooks, the opportunity is bigger for school children -

1. Kindles can inculcate a habit of reading at a young age.
2. Younger children have not had reading drummed out of their system by a decade plus of MTV and other distractions.
3. The physical benefits of not having to drag around 30 pounds of textbooks is much more so for younger kids. 

The much bigger opportunity is with younger children. Anyone who’s done any teaching or coaching or managing knows that unlearning bad habits is a far bigger challenge than teaching good habits. So – teach your kids to read and learn at a young age instead of waiting till college, and then trying to get them to change their bad habits.

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