Ryan Collins

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Tag: kindle

  • Look out, there’s a new tablet in town and it’s HOT!

    Announcing the Kindle Fire

    Amazon announced a few new Kindles today, the most important, in my
    mind, is the Kindle Fire. It is a 7″ tablet running a specialized
    version of Android. The shocker was the price, \$199. With todays
    announcement, every school district that is looking at mobile devices
    will need to take a pause and examine what the Fire has to offer.

    At that price point, it undercuts the iPod Touch by \$30. It also
    sacrifices a camera and microphone. But it makes up for those
    deficiencies by offering a larger and better display. The main problem
    with the Fire would be the lack of applications for the educational
    market. Of course you have access to all the Kindle books, and the
    explicitly list full color children’s books for it, so it may be just a
    matter of time before educational software takes off on it.

    Does size matter?

    In our iOS pilot programs with iPod Touches and iPads it has become
    pretty clear that it is hard to convince teachers that the small screen
    of the iPod Touch can still be used for content creation. The students,
    I’ve noticed, don’t mind using the iPod Touch, so for them, size doesn’t
    matter. When it comes to content such as PDFs and books, the larger
    screen size would be very advantageous.

    Theft is also an issue in school, but the larger size of the Fire may be
    a deterrent. The Fire would also be able to be used by more than one
    student at a time due to it’s size.

    Waiting..

    I’m going to try to hold off any further mobile purchases until the Fire
    is released and I get a chance to use one. I could see it replacing a
    lot of iPod Touches this Christmas, it will be interesting to see what
    Apple has in store on October 4th. If the applications come, the Fire
    will be a very compelling device for school districts.

    What devices are you investigating for use in your classroom or
    district?

  • A Kindle, iPad, and iPod Touch walk into a classroom – #neotech2011

    Here are the slides with notes: Handout from my presentation. For
    those following along with Twitter here are the results of the poll:
    [][]

    I really enjoyed the conference, and want to thank everyone that was
    involved at putting it on. It was very well run (although I didn’t win
    the MacBook Air door prize… :-).

    (more…)

  • A Kindle, iPad, and iPod Touch walk into a classroom – #oetc11

    The slides are available on Google Docs.

  • The Kindle DX is available for pre-order, does anyone care?

    Today’s announcement of the Kindle DX, a 9.7″ version of the
    Kindle     is being hailed as some sort of savior of the newspaper
    industry and a breakthrough for the college textbook market.

    At almost \$500 I don’t see it as either. The biggest negative about the
    Kindle will also be the last thing fixed, if it is ever addressed, and
    that is the ability to re-sell your content (or at least lend it to
    others). I’m sure the textbook companies are falling over themselves to
    support the Kindle. Here is the ability to sell a text book, with no
    production/delivery costs, and then know that the book will not be
    resold at the end of the semester.

    The newspaper subscription idea has merit, but then again, they need to
    lower their subscription rates. I’ve looked at transferring my USA Today
    subscription to digital, but it costs almost the same as getting a paper
    copy! At least with the paper copy I can lend/give it to someone else,
    or cut out an article to save.

    Is anyone looking at using the Kindle in a school? What would be the
    advantages of it over something like a netbook?

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