What features does an ereader need to work in schools?

[Will DeLamater]

My list includes:
1. wifi
2. touchscreen
3. color
4. larger screen

What else?

[BMCDeepak]

Here is my wish list:

1. Printing capability...yes yes I know. BUT, it would be good to have the ability to print documents.
2. Establish an e-mail for a class so you can send stuff to all your students.
3. Provide BETTER support for PDF's...like navigation w/o converting document formats.
4. A projection capability...connect the Kindle to an overhead to project contents for presentations.
5. Support for developing interactive documents. Think about sending a Pop Quiz to the class where students can fill out the answers....This will also enable crosswords+sudoku games as well.

[Will DeLamater]

What a great list! Of course, any academic application of an ereader device, Kindle or otherwise, will need to be able to support printing. With the Kindle wireless system, your idea for emailing documents and such to students should be do-able, since each Kindle has its own email address. Navigation is, in my opinion, the absolute key to the academic use of the Kindle, and since Amazon seems to think that pdf support is integral to their (hush, hush) "textbook strategy," your point about the usefulness of pdfs is spot on. I love the idea about projection--wow, would that make close reading a passage from Macbeth easy to do! I believe that the issue of interactivity is right at the heart of the debate between a $350 Kindle and a $300 netbook--will the netbook win the debate solely on the issue of its support for interactivity? Maybe. My thoughts on this topic are reflected in this post at the EduKindle blog. Great suggestions!

[Kraig D. Pritts]

Agreed, better support for PDFs (I have a DX so that is done on that machine) and TOOLS, TOOLS, TOOLS. The reader must become a one stop shop. Preloaded with browser links to tools with reader formatted web sites, loaded with an agenda type tool, periodic table, math and science reference tools and all of the public domain classics. As many texts as possible would also be useful but the publishers are and will always be way behind in this area.

The text to speech and audio books capabilities are great for our students with disabilities. The large font capabilities as well. The large screen of the DX provides a better end user experience but the smaller sizes work equally as well on non PDF documents. There is much there already, we just need to have the vision.

As I am working to reduce the paper load in my district, I am a bit print phobic. The emailing (in the Kindle) or even card exchange (in other models) provides the opportunity to submit work as required. I see, the reader device, however, as a massive textbook and resource for our students. I don't see it as a replacement for the computer, but instead as a "backpack full of books" replacement. Textbooks can't print either, yet we spend hundreds of dollars per student to provide them. Just think, how a classroom would look with a bank of computers for students to use to create their work and only one reader necessary for all of their resources. Whether through touch or a keyboard, the basic agenda information can be retained on the reader. The netbook/computer handles the rest. We parovide all of the tools necessary in two items.

OK, off my soapbox.

[Stephanie Cave]

I would love to see the ability to integrate with smart boards. If I could project the text on the smartboard, capture the image of the text, and mark up/notate it for students, it would be a great way to teach close reading and annotation.

[Kraig D. Pritts]

Stephanie Cave said:

I would love to see the ability to integrate with smart boards. If I could project the text on the smartboard, capture the image of the text, and mark up/notate it for students, it would be a great way to teach close reading and annotation.

Could this happen in a workaround fashion for the time being through an Elmo device? In fact that could happen even withtout the SmartBoard. You can pull your clippings from the Kindle (at least on my DX) as a text file from the USB port connectin and opening the folder. Just a thought

[Will DeLamater]

Great suggestion on the Elmo. I did that at the recent Connexions conference in Houston and it allowed me to show a book I had created and demo the table of contents and so forth. This was using a DX, so the screen was large and easily visible. I guess I could have set a transparency on top of the DX screen and made annotations for the class to see.

Kraig D. Pritts said:

Stephanie Cave said:

I would love to see the ability to integrate with smart boards. If I could project the text on the smartboard, capture the image of the text, and mark up/notate it for students, it would be a great way to teach close reading and annotation.

Could this happen in a workaround fashion for the time being through an Elmo device? In fact that could happen even withtout the SmartBoard. You can pull your clippings from the Kindle (at least on my DX) as a text file from the USB port connectin and opening the folder. Just a thought

[Jason W. Eckert]

My list is similar - for the college market, I am most concerned with its ability to display a PDF as good as a printed book.

We recently implemented the larger size Kindle DX graphite (3rd generation with high contrast screen) - it displays the textbook PDFs and lab exercises that student must complete beautifully! However, we pre-cropped the PDFs so that the body of the text fills the entire Kindle DX screen. Since most publishers use an aspect ratio that is equivalent to 8.5x11" paper (the aspect ratio that eBook readers are designed for), the cropped PDFs look fantastic on the new Kindle DX.

I'm not too concerned about any other features - color is nice, but not needed since nearly all college books are B&W - the color ones actually have B&W screenshots and diagrams and use two shades of blue to highlight different textbook elements because blue is close to greyscale, and adult students see greyscale better as they age (over the age of 30, the cones and rods in your retina change and you can read greyscale much faster than color). Similarly, touchscreen is not too important since the main functions we use in the classroom are navigating to a specific page and turning pages (both of which can be done easily with a button). WiFi isn't necessary since students can easily plug in their eBook reader into a PC using a USB connection (WiFi just leads to configuration problems and congestion on the campus wireless access points anyways).

[Robin Sowder]

here is a link to an article I rec'd from Library Link of the Day. I won't say it is great or bad, just an informational perspective with some links in the comments.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/will_your_local_library_lend_e...

[Jason W. Eckert]

I attended a discussion at the University of Western Ontario that involved discussing how digital libraries would succeed - there were computer scientists, lawyers and librarians at the discussion. There were many points brought up regarding the challenges that we/libraries would face by moving to digital libraries - namely, the ability to lend content without copying it. In the end, there was a single strategy that seemed to fit digital libraries well - Flash/HTML5 distribution. Libraries distribute finite copies of books to readers for limited periods of time, and these books are never stored permanently at a person's home/office. Flash/HTML5 content can distribute copies of eBooks to any device that has a Web browser in a similar way while allowing the distributor to control the number of people using the content at the same time. Technically, this content can be extracted in crude ways using other programs from a Web browser, but people can also copy books at libraries (a yearly fee is paid to an organization to allow this - in Canada, it is called "Access Copyright") - this Access Copyright model could easily be applied to a digital library situation with little leal difficulty. Of course a system like this could work only if it were used alongside a distribution mechnaism that allows people to buy books too (which we already have with Amazon, Barnes&Noble, etc.). I hope something like this gets critical mass sometime soon!

Robin Sowder said:

here is a link to an article I rec'd from Library Link of the Day. I won't say it is great or bad, just an informational perspective with some links in the comments.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/will_your_local_library_lend_e...

[Kathy M Burnette]

the elmo we have has capturing/annotating software so you can actually "mark" things up, save it, and project it to classes later. When I tested the Nooks and Kindles on the Elmo, the screen size was just fine using the 6" so I'm guessing the DX must rock.

You must have some sort of password protection and volume pricing.