This Article is about Gilbert Elementary School starting a book club using the Nook e-readers. The school purchased six e-readers, and is giving their sixth grade students an opportunity to use the Nook. The students check out the Nook form the library for two weeks. During that two week students use it to read what ever they want. By the end of the school year all of the sixth grade students will have had a turn with the Nooks. The school librarian says it is "my job as a librarian is to encourage and motivate kids to read, and I don't want to limit them in what they can read. She goes on to say that she feels that the Nook will not replace print books. The article also talked about how e-books are cheaper and that you don't have to wait as long for new releases. One example in the article was the book "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins cost $17.99 for a hardcover at Barnes & Noble, the paperback is $8.99, and the e-book is $5.
If it takes being able to check out the Nook from the library in order to get students to read then it is worth every penny spent. While the beginning investment is expensive. School libraries can easily make up the cost in the price of the e-books. Most school libraries buy hardcover books due to sturdiness. which if the school had bought six copies of "The Hunger Games" the would have spent $107.40 versus $5 for the e-book. This is a huge saving to a school budget. I hope that my future school will have some form of e-readers/tablet for student to use, even they can only use them in the library.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
mlearning- The Kindle Fire will enable the next generation of 1:1 education apps
This article talks about how the Kindle Fire is very suitable for education. It focuses on a few features. Some of them are the size, the price, and the Android based operating system. The author of this article really like that the Kindle Fire stays connected to Amazon's EC2 cloud. This allows the internet to work faster and to have better graphic with in the apps.
I had never thought about the size making that munch of a difference, but the author made a good point when he said that based on size the Kindle Fire would be good for elementary students because they could hold it better. The price is good, but I would not buy something based on price alone. I like that the internet can work faster than on other tablets.
I had never thought about the size making that munch of a difference, but the author made a good point when he said that based on size the Kindle Fire would be good for elementary students because they could hold it better. The price is good, but I would not buy something based on price alone. I like that the internet can work faster than on other tablets.
mlearning- The iPad for Administrators and Teachers
This article talked about different apps for the iPad that could be helpful to administrators and teachers. Some of the apps were free, but most others ranged from $1.99 to $9.99. There was a grade book app, a lesson plan app, and several apps to keep you organized. The article pointed out that a common complaint of administrators and teachers is that they have to many papers and notes to keep up with. This is where the iPad comes in because you can use it for everything and just have to keep up with one thing.
I feel that the iPad can be very helpful as long as you are committed to using it. Lets say I only used it for lesson planing and nothing else then it would not be a helpful tool. I do know teachers who could not live without there iPads because they use them a lot and others who never used them. I looked at a few of the apps suggested. I really wanted to check out the IEP Checklist app but it said that it was not available in the U.S. I liked the TeacherPal app better than the GradeBook Pro app and it appeared that they were a lot alike.The other app that I looked at was the Planbook app. I could see me using some of these apps in the future to help manage my classroom.
I feel that the iPad can be very helpful as long as you are committed to using it. Lets say I only used it for lesson planing and nothing else then it would not be a helpful tool. I do know teachers who could not live without there iPads because they use them a lot and others who never used them. I looked at a few of the apps suggested. I really wanted to check out the IEP Checklist app but it said that it was not available in the U.S. I liked the TeacherPal app better than the GradeBook Pro app and it appeared that they were a lot alike.The other app that I looked at was the Planbook app. I could see me using some of these apps in the future to help manage my classroom.
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