Has Kindle Reached a Tipping Point?

Here's how I evaluate tech items: I evaluate them based on a number of factors such as functionality and features, reviews, hypothetical projections about how I would or wouldn't use an item and, if possible, the real experience of people I know with regard to the 'thing' in question. It's not entirely personal for me-it's about information gathering if I have an initial interest in something. My guess is this is the same for many who are involved in work at the intersections of education and technology. I will more likely want that something if criteria in all of the above categories tip in favor of owning the item. Since there's so much data gathering involved, I'm not often at the point of 'wanting' something----yet. The other problem is the data gathering isn't necessarily a formal process either. I do it when I have time or the inclination. I believe that a tipping point has been reached for the Kindle.

Here's how receiving an Amazon Kindle e-Reader fared:
Functionality and Features
I've always been impressed with the Kindle. Kindle functionality has always appeared to be right in line with what would be expected of an e-reader. Sony didn't see what was coming and lost the e-book market they should have dominated (the Sony Reader beat the Kindle to market by a full year).

• Kindle E-ink allows reading in bright light, the weight of the divice and side page turn buttons allow it to be held with one hand.

• 750,000 books and growing-includes free downloads for books out of copyright.

• Free book backup (Amazon keeps your books on file and ready for download at anytime, should you need them).

• The battery lasts for a month with wifi off. Wifi allows connection to the internet and whispernet technology delivers books within 60 seconds.

• Newspapers can be downloaded and read on it.

• PDF reading is built in.

• The latest Kindle has Twitter and Facebook Integration so book passages can be 'tweeted' and shared.

• Music can be listened to while reading (if desired)
  

Reviews
As for customer reviews (as of this writing): of 6,099 reviews, 5341 of those reviews are rated at 4 or 5 stars. As for commercial reviews, here are a few for the latest Kindle:

"New Kindle leaves rivals farther back." - New York Times

"Amazon's newest Kindle is the best ebook-reading device on the market. It's better than the Apple iPad, the Barnes & Noble Nook, the various Sony readers…" - Fast Company

"Battery life is long enough for space shuttle missions." - Wired

"What's clear, however, is that if you're looking for a standalone e-reader (i.e., a portable replacement for physical books), this is the go-to, standard-setting device." - Engadget

"Its solid build quality, along with its improved design, integrated store, and cross-platform transportability… all add up to a winner that shoots to the head of the pack."- PC World

Hypothetical Projections about how I would use the Kindle
This is where it becomes more subjective. I do read constantly. Usually I have several books going at once--both printed and e-books. I have been using the Kindle app for i-phone and read books on that device. This is where it has become difficult to 'imagine' how things would change if I were to suddenly to own an actual Kindle. I've actually grown accustomed to reading on the i-touch. I can hold it in one hand and I like the ability to leave the app momentarily to check e-mail, or the weather or my twitter feed, etc.. But, lately, I have been coming around to the idea of owning an actual Kindle for the following reasons.

1-I would be able to read it comfortably at the gym while cycling or using the treadmill. I have tried to read the i-touch while running (on the treadmill) and it is somewhat a comedy of errors-the screen is small and I have to touch it to turn a page every few seconds making me lose my stride (and balance). The Kindle would be a bit easier for this purpose.

2-The capacity of the latest Kindle is now around 3500 books.

3-I like the aforementioned Twitter and Facebook integration comcept because I have actually had the thought while reading on the i-touch, "I wish I could share this with....". To do this I have actually taken a screen shot of the page in question with the text highlighted. Now saved as a photo, I have uploaded this to Facebook. Pretty round-about way of sharing text.

4-I can actually use my i-touch for other purposes while reading on the Kindle itself.

5-It's actually attractive. It's sleek and stylish and the e-ink is easy on the eyes.

6-I trust that Amazon is going to continue to improve the Kindle with new services.

Real experience of others
Everyone I know who has one, loves it. A Kindle of someone I know died after the warranty had expired. The screen just showed lines instead of text and nothing she did (recommended at Amazon) would fix it. A single phone call explaining the problem resulted in a NEW KINDLE being mailed overnight for free, no strings attached.

Final Analysis
I think the Kindle has reached a tipping point and as one evaluates whether or not to buy an ipad instead, I think price will further tip in the direction of the Kindle. Is it a Kindle Christmas?

10 Things All Teachers Should Know How to Do (Edited)

After viewing @todmafin's tweet about how it's simply not funny to claim 'Luddite' status anymore, I thought about what might be important-from a tech perspective-to know as a teacher teaching in these times. Here's my top ten...with many exclusions.

These, to me, are basic competencies I think all School Districts should assess and provide professional development in.

All teachers should be able to..........
1. Subscribe to an RSS Feed
2. Bookmark, tag and annotate websites in the Cloud
3. Create and use a Blog
4. Create and use a Wiki site
5. Create hyperlinks (in e-mail, at blogs, websites and wikis)
6. Create a PDF file for Free
7. Capture, Remix and upload Photos (free of copyright restrictions)
8. Capture, Remix and upload Audio/Video
9. Use Google Docs or other collaborative file sharing system.
10. Locate and Participate in Social Networks on Education, Useful Tech Tools for Learning, 21st Century Learning and content-specific Education Sites.

What would you add?

Teaching Digitally: The Power of PDF

The Paradigm is shifting. One word encompasses the new global paradigm which affects everything and everyone: DIGITAL.

It's about creating and keeping things in a digital format. It's about sharing information digitally. It's about reading and writing digitally. Creating music digitally. Sending invoices digitally. Keeping medical records digitally. Archiving family photos digitally. And, hopefully,TEACHING digitally (as TeachPaperless and others have been advocating for some time). There are strong environmental reasons to support this since going digital means fewer trees are sacrificed for use as paper which also means fewer chemicals are used to process paper but there are other reasons, too. For some, even those that understand and support 'going digital' it's tough to break from the tactile comfort that 'things' bring. As a bibliophile of sorts I understand this. Books, to me, have an 'aura'. They have a look. They have a feel and yes, even a smell: the sweet, slightly mossy smell of pulp. The cover art also conveys something powerful causing an 'emotional' experience even when a book isn't being read. And one can curl up with a 'good book', a cup of tea (and perhaps a cat or other favorite pet). It's a tactile and somewhat romanticized vision. However, sales of books in digital format (e-books) are on the rise. For one, Amazon's Kindle E-Book Reader makes it easy (and relatively inexpensive) to download and read a book digitally. So, books are not being spared digital treatment.

The reality, though, is that so much information beyond books simply doesn't need to be printed out anymore. All information can be converted to PDF files. Portable Document Files were originally created by Adobe Systems in 1993 and were opened up as an open standard in July 2008. This simply means anyone can view, use and create PDF's now. Think of them as Mp3's for text and images. Mp3's can be played on ANY Mp3 player. PDF's can be viewed on any computer regardless of software, hardware or operating system.

BENEFITS of PDF's FOR TEACHERS
If you are a teacher, anything you 'hand out' to a student can be delivered digitally. (See below for how to distribute your PDF documents). One way to create digital documents is to scan a worksheet or lesson and let the scan software create an automatic PDF file of the document. PDF (Portable Document File) files are powerful for a number of reasons. First, they are relatively small in size so they take up little hard drive space. Example: a 500 page PDF file of jazz standards I own takes up only 18MB of hard drive space. To understand how small this really is nowadays, Google's e-mail program Gmail allows users to e-mail an attachment up to 20 MB. This means, I can e-mail you a 500 page document right now. Not only you but all 12 (or 1000) of you that might happen to read this blog post. Second, PDF files can not be edited by others (well, they can be, but not easily). That's the main idea behind PDF's . What you want people (students, parents, staff) to see is what they see. Think of it as a 'picture' of your document.

VIEWING PDF files
How do you view PDF files? Adobe Reader is probably the most popular way to view PDF files and most computers have it installed but I prefer Foxit Reader. It's free and less bulky than Adobe Reader. I encourage anyone to download and use it instead of Adobe but, in the end, it doesn't really matter which program you use.

HOW TO CREATE A PDF file
If you type up a document, worksheet or handout and want to turn it into a PDF file there are several ways to do this. I will highlight two methods:

1-Get a -Gmail account and begin using Google Docs instead of MS Word or some other 'stand alone' word processing program. Once you create then save a document in Google Docs, you can download it as a PDF file. All of this is done free of charge simply by creating a Gmail account. The benefit is that all of your work lives "online". This is what is referred to as "cloud computing". You can access your documents from anywhere at anytime. It de-emphasizes the power of PLACE (a future blog post). At any rate, the PDF file you create can now be 'delivered' to the audience of your choosing. It can be posted at a website so students can download it or it can be e-mailed directly as well.

2-If you prefer to use the word processing (ie. MS Word) program that resides on your hard drive, you can still create a PDF file for free. The concept to understand at the outset is that you will "print" the document as a PDF. But first, download the free program called PDF CREATOR. Once installed, just choose PDF Creator as your "printer" when you choose to print. Voila! You just created a PDF file which you can distribute to anyone, anytime, anywhere.

When we get right down to it, we buy books for the information contained in the books even if the covers are attractive. At school we don't put fancy covers on our handouts (though we may jazz them up with "fun" fonts and clip art), we simply create them and hand them out because it's about the INFORMATION contained in them. That's what digitization does: it cuts to the chase. It gets to the heart of the matter-the essence, the message, the objective, the point. Welcome to the digital world. What will you digitize today?