September 24th, 2009
Kid #3 is not impressed with the Kindle
Kid #3 is my 14-year old. When you have 4 kids and another on the way, you have to come up with a good scheme for referring to them in tweets and blogs in some semi-anonymous way that doesn’t show any favoritism. So birth order it is and this post is about Kid #3’s initial impression of the Kindle 2 I brought home to evaluate.
I mentioned that it had the new Dan Brown novel on it and that he could grab it anytime to read it. Here’s now the conversation went:
Kid #3: “Well what is that?”
Me: “It’s a Kindle - you use it to read electronic books.”
Kid #3: “How much did it cost?”
Me: “About $300.”
Kid #3: “How much did the book cost?”
Me: “About $10.”
Kid #3: “Well, I still want to buy the book.”
Me: “Why?”
Kid #3: “So I can have the book!”
Hmmm. Curiosity got the better of him, though, and he took the Kindle, opening the leather cover. He swiped his hand across the screen, waiting for it to come on.
Me: “It’s not a touch screen.”
Kid #3: “Why not?”
Me: “Well, because it’s e-ink - it makes it easier to read. Besides, you have buttons to change pages.”
Kid #3: “Oh…It should have a touch screen.”
Hard to argue with that one, actually. Simple touch gestures for turning the pages would certainly be cooler and more intuitive than the buttons, especially for Generation iPod.
I figured that I’d run the device past Kid #4. He’s 7 and is almost as gadget-obsessed as I am. He also lists Junie B. Jones among his guilty pleasures. Junie B. Jones, unfortunately, only has 3 books available on the Kindle store, all of which he had read, making the $4 investment in any of them a bit rich for his blood (especially with no guarantee that the pictures would be as good as the drawings in the paper books).
I’m happily reading The Lost Symbol, but I have to admit that I actually don’t like the buttons as much as the navigation tools on the original Kindle. I’m beginning to think that using the Kindle effectively in Ed Tech means matching just the right content with just the right user. Where’s that new tablet from Microsoft, again?
Follow Chris Dawson on Twitter! Christopher Dawson is the technology director for the Athol-Royalston School District in northern Massachusetts and a member of the Internet Press Guild. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations, but always keep in mind that the opinions expressed here are his own and not those of his daytime employer, even if he talks incessantly about his day job.
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