Kindles

Kindles
Why Kindles? We liked the options that are available to kindle users and the look and feel of the Kindles but it was mainly that for our library (and with how themedia type="custom" key="8485326" width="150" height="150" align="right"firewalls are set up in our school) it was simply the easiest option to buy e-books when you have the 3G option. media type="youtube" key="gotyZNvtc44" width="425" height="350" We have purchased a few kindles and are trialling them with our senior students this term. There will be enough for each student of our year 11 literature class to borrow one. One reason we decided to try e-books was that it would be a good way to make sure that we had a lot of the classic titles available to our students. Many of these titles should be available but may only be read once every one or two years at the most. We are short of space in our library and these titles take up a good deal of space and that along with the expense of purchasing a book that yellows etc. (making it unattractive to prospective readers after a while) made the ebook seem like a good idea. Another thing I liked was that if we don't have a book that a student is very keen to read, I will be able to check of an eook version and order it and have it available within minutes. Last year I had a few cases where a student wanted one of the classics and I send off an order that took 3-4 weeks to finally arrive. One boy was very keen to read it and had already purchased his own copy before the library could offer it to him. Based on very early feedback e-books seemed to offer other advantages. The boys in the literature class are happy to give us more feedback after they have spent more time using them. The points they make will be added to this wiki
 * U sing Kindles in our library **
 * Students who are influenced by the size (number of pages) of the books now can now choose stories based on the content/style of the story and will read through them because the content is of interest.
 * ﻿ Boys who have eyesight problems can simple change the size of the font rather than have a ﻿"large print" book. Our boys don't like to stand out as "different" so the ebook helps with this
 * We also have boys for whom English is a second language (ESL). These boys, and some others who have learning difficulties, can listen to audio whist they are reading. This will help them improve their reading skills and develop a better understanding about pronunciation.
 * The dictionary option is also great for the boys so they can easily and in an instant check on the definition of an unfamiliar word.

We catalogued each Kindle separately. Each of the e-readers was given a name, kindle#1, kindle#2 and so on, and then each was given a College barcode identity. The kindles could then be processed as any other library book/resource. We have a library system that allows us to catalogue using a "table of contents" (TOC) option. In the past we have been put in author, title and subjects for the contents of a book that contains a collection of stories or speeches for instance. These are all added into separate fields and students can then search the catalogue via title, author or subject of each of the stories as well as the collective title. Any new e-book title downloaded from Amazon is added to the applicable Kindle device's TOC. Any new e-book title downloaded from Amazon is added to the applicable Kindle device's TOC. Each new book title has "(kindle)" added to the end of the book title to make it really obvious to the searcher that it is an e-book version. Below are some good videos created by students who were part of the Net Gen Project site One stiudent said "This is my video comparing the good effects of the e-book to some of the negative ways of learning we use now." Another wanted to show the innovation and another just how much easier they could make student lives
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