Kindle for Distance Learning

I read John Gapper's column in the Financial Times with great interest. He described the battle between the Sony Reader and Amazon's Kindle and indicated that he thought that the Kindle had won. The Kindle has built-in wireless capability, it is easy to get content from Amazon for it (now there are over 145,000 items available), you can easily subscribe to newspapers and blogs and of course, it has a keyboard. Although Amazon has not provided sales figures for the Kindle, other groups have estimated that about 240,000 units have been sold.

One of the reasons that I am so fascinated by e-readers and the Kindle, in particular, is that I getting my Master's in Library Science through an online program and I can see what a terrific market the online learning community is for a Kindle or other reader. Of course, now the Kindle can only access what is available through Amazon or books in the public domain and that would have to be expanded.

For my classes,I access a bulletin board in which the professor and the students post and respond. Through this bulletin board, also access my assignments, find papers to be read and access other course tools such as our wiki. A Kindle or Kindle-like device would allow distance students to easily keep in touch with the bulletin board, get their email and research. The wireless capability is the key along with the keyboard because students could use the device not just to read items on the bulletin board but post as well.

A lot of distance students complain about the lack of community and face-to-face interactions. That bothers me less because I managed a development group remotely for several years. What I would like to see to increase satisfaction in distance learning is improved access and a portable device that I can always carry and like the Kindle, is always connected to a wireless network.