mlearning- Why We Won't Purchase More Kindles at the Unquiet Library

This article is about a school Librarian that received a email form Amazon that she had to remove information from the library Facebook page. On this page she said that you could register six kindles with one email address so that you could share books on six different kindles. At the time this Librarian posted that information to Facebook it was true. However, Amazon has changed their policy on this and each kindle has to have a different email address. That the library needed to purchase overdrive. This is a major expense to the library that they can not afford. Because if this the kindle that they do have will not be use very much because the library will not purchase any more books for them at this time, They have also decided to not by anymore kindles and will purchase the Nook Simple Touch.

 I know that Amazon is a business and they want to make money. I feel that they could have been nicer to this teacher. She was not breaking any policies when she set up the kindles. If the policies changed then it should be enforced on future purchases not on past. I feel that Amazon should have been nicer because there are millions of teachers and you don't want to get on there bad side. Amazon is not the only book company or e-read company out there. As teachers we do not have to give them there our business. I feel that if Amazon wants educators to use there products then they need to make sure that the product is affordable for educators.

mlearning- The iPad is Changing Schools

This article tells about many different school systems that have or plan to integrate iPads into classrooms. The article also talked about the cost associated with these iPads. The Detroit Lakes Public School Districts are spending $105,000 on 304 iPads for their students. Some school districts are renting iPads. However, this is very expensive. It is costing the North Fork Local School District $74,500 per year with an option to buy the iPads in four year.The article talked about Knox County's plan to have iPads or similar devices for every student in all 87 schools bay the year 2015, and they will have to install a robust wireless network in all Knox County schools. New Zealand could be the first country were all students have iPads. They are requiring parents to buy iPads for their students. Many schools that have iPads are switching to digital textbooks.IPads are being used in special education classrooms to help students with various disabilities.

I feel that iPads will be in every classroom soon. I like that idea of renting iPads, but feel that some school districts can not afford to rent or buy iPads. I thought that it was neat that Knox County was included in this article. No matter what the cost it is worth it if the iPad makes a difference in even one child's education. I have been in special education room where they use iPods and some times iPads. The students loved it when we would get them out for them to use. 

mlearning- The Kindle Fire as Educational Tablet

This article talked about how the Kindle Fire is better suited for college students than for k-12 students, but that college students are not interested in using e-readers for  textbooks. Some of the reasons are that it is difficult to take notes, to share books, and that there is not much of a cost-savings when buying e-textbooks.

The author of this article feels that Amazon does not "seem to be targeting any aspect of the educational market" and the author goes on to say that the Kindle Fire is "definitely a device to consume content, not to create content."

As a future educator I hope that Amazon will come out with more educational apps, and be just a fancy e-reader. I feel that more school would by them based on price alone if they had better educational apps. However, I have to agree with the article that the e-textbooks do not save enough money to make it worth buy for that reason alone. One advantage that the Kindle Fire has is that it is much smaller than the iPad.

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/hack-higher-education/kindle-fire-educational-tablet#ixzz22AMHXmw8
Inside Higher Ed

mlearning- Our Nook Adventure

This is actually a set of blogs by a middle school librarian. She writes about her adventure from the purchasing of the Nooks to having students use the Nook. They ordered 30 Nooks. The blogs start with the how she decided to purchase the Nooks over other e-readers.  The main reason she choose the Nook was because of the technical support that Barnes & Noble offered. However, purchasing the Nooks was not easy due to the fact that Barnes & Noble would not accept a purchase order to purchase the Nooks. Once the Nooks arrived they had to figure out a way to catalog the titles on each Nook. They were able to use the same account for five Nooks, so if you bought a book for one then it would be on all five under that account. This made it a little easier for them to catalog the titles. There was lots of learning curves in this series of blogs. Some of these were that the Nook had to be on to charge, you must have a credit card on file during the entirety of the download process,and that you must have a credit card on file that has enough credit on to cover the purchase even if you are using a gift card to purchase the books. One disadvantage is that each time a book was purchased they had to reenter the credit card information because they had to delete it each time so that students would not access to this information. They had trouble purchasing titles because there school credit card could only have a certain number of charges each month and Barnes & Noble billed each book separately which would put them over there number of purchases for the month. Over all it was worth all the hassle, because the students loved them and read more. Another benefit was that they could make a more customized list for each student.

I found this blog very informative. I would not have thought of many of the issues that had to be worked out to get and use the Nooks. You would have thought that Barnes & Noble would have some sort of educational department to work with schools to make it easier for schools to purchase the Nooks. I do not like that you have to have a credit card on file to use a gift card. Also you would think that Barnes & Noble would offer educators a discount when purchasing the Nooks and books for the Nook. The only negative of having the Nooks is that they had to stay at school. This would mean that your lesson plans would have to be something that the students could get done at school. I really like that you could some what customize the Nook to the student that was using it.

Google Earth

I learned that you can view the bottom of the ocean using Google earth. I also learned that you could view Mars. I looked at the Pre-K lesson plan and the elementary lesson plan. I liked the idea of pulling up a students address and then zooming in until they recognize that it is their house. I would not have thought to use Google earth to explore distance. I looked at the 26 interesting ways and tips to use Google earth. I really liked the idea of a virtual drive, and I liked that you could change the fly to speed so that students can get more form using Google earth. I also liked the take a trip through a story, and that they were broken down by grade levels.

Google Maps

I have used Google maps many times, but I did learn that when getting directions you could chose form different forms of transportation. I did not know that you could chose waking and public transportation. I also learned that you could click on traffic button to get a traffic report, and that if photos are available it will show a picture of the traffic. An Interesting thing that I learned for the Google Treks site is that you can make virtual tours using Google maps, and that within this tour you can add video, facts, vocabulary, and pictures.

Picasa

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I liked that it was easy to crop photos in Picasa. It had preset crops or you could crop the photo yourself. I liked the effects that you apply to the photo. It was also easy to upload a photo.