The Kindle Fire for Education
Jeff Bezos’ announcement yesterday about Amazon’s latest line of products has the tech world buzzing. But educators have reason to be just as excited about the Kindle Fire, with its variety of uses in the classroom and on campus.
The 7” design makes handling easy for all students, from youngsters in kindergarten to college athletes. And the full-color touch screen adds the visual and interactive qualities lacking in previous versions of the Kindle.
The Fire’s price is another appealing feature, particularly for struggling students and schools with limited technology budgets. At just $199, it has a significant edge over pricey iPads, which start at $400.
Here are the product’s basic features:
- A 7”, 16 million color IPS display
- Gorilla glass (can take rough treatment from younger students without scratching or breaking)
- 14.6 ounces (light enough to carry around in almost any bag or backpack)
- The back is rubberized (won’t slip out of tiny hands)
- Battery life of 8 hours of continuous reading
- 8 GB of internal memory and tons of cloud storage
- Amazon’s new Silk web browser
- Powered by a duo core processor
The Kindle Fire uses Google’s Android operating system, which will allow Fire owners to make use of Amazon’s Appstore for Android. This includes all of the existing educational apps and programs.
Since the Fire is an extension of Amazon’s online store, both students and teachers will be able to utilize a new feature, which allows them to rent textbooks electronically from the website. This is exclusive to the Kindle Fire and will challenge the staggering textbook expenses students face each semester. And teachers can enhance their lessons without added costs by directly pulling from their own texts in order to teach.
Along with the cost savings, using Kindle Fire is a great green initiative, since it saves the paper wasted on new editions of textbooks that are reprinted annually.
So, is the Kindle Fire a purchase you would make for your classroom? Let us know in the comment section!
