Jennifer Pritt's Comments

I think you would have an easier time experimenting with the Kindle if you had your own, as the school's Kindle will be tied to the school account, limiting (I presume) the number and nature of books you could purchase and try out or even use for your own pleasure reading. For your 10th grade class, what is the curriculum and what are your goals? For independent reading, the Kindle will be great. For use in class, maybe less so since it is hard to get everyone on the same page. Of course, readers at all levels seem to like the bigger available font size (reducing impediments to reading), and they can experiment with text to speech and even posting passage to a Twitter account you could set up for the purpose (in Settings).

for one thing - the built in dictionary is awesome.  Just click at the beginning of the word and the definition will show at the bottom.

Also - if you have a way to turn something into a pdf file - say you have notes you have typed.  If you have a mac you can click file/print and choose save as pdf.

You download the program calibre which is free and has versions for mac and pc.  Drag a pdf onto calibre. The first time you will have to tell it that you want the output to be a mobi file.  It will convert the pdf to a mobi file that will flow on the kindle so text can be enlarged (though I hear that pdfs are better on the new kindles - I have a gen 2)

Hook the kindle to the computer via usb and it will show up like a flash drive.  Double click to open it and you will see folders.  The books live in the documents folder.  Drag your file to that folder and it will show up in your table of contents and you can read it anywhere.

this is a great resource.  There have been a couple of web "meetings" with a presenter and everyone commenting in the sidebar.  I am sure they will do another one.  Very informative.  If you can find my page I have a list of resources that I have accumulated. 

You will find most everyone very helpful.  Let me know if I can answer any questions.  Our school librarian has purchased two but we haven't implemented any procedure for them to be checked out yet.  I have had mine for about a year and love it.  It goes everywhere with me.

Hi Jennifer - nice to "meet" you :)