No More Text Books: Enter Kindle

It was only a matter of time, right?

Students at Clearwater High School in Tampa, Florida are getting Kindles instead of text books in the fall.

From the story:

Though the school hasn’t settled on a vendor, school officials are negotiating with Amazon Kindle to try to equip all 2,100 students with the 10-ounce devices this fall.

Already, the school issued e-readers to all 100 of its teachers.

Principal Keith Mastorides said he was inspired to make the switch earlier this school year after campus surveys revealed a desire to integrate more technology with classroom instruction.

“When you think about students today, three-quarters of their day is spent on some kind of electronic device,” Mastorides said. “We’re just looking at textbooks a little differently.”

It makes sense to me. Teens are so connected these days that I can see them embracing electronic texts with more passion than they do hard-copy ones. And no more leaving text books in the locker overnight because they’re too heavy to carry home.

There’s also the cost factor: electronic texts are less expensive than their hard-copy counterparts. And losing a Kindle doesn’t mean losing all the texts stored on it. Those files can be transferred to a new device.

Read the full story here from the St. Petersburg Times.