Evening reading with the iPod Touch
Here’s a new sight around our house this summer: My 11 year old son reading in bed using his iPod Touch. He just finished reading “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson over the weekend thanks to Project Gutenberg, and is now starting “Animal Farm” by George Orwell. These are two of the required summer reading texts for incoming sixth graders at Classen School for Advanced Studies in Oklahoma City, where he’ll be going in the fall.
Earlier this month, I was delighted to learn that three of the four books he needs to read over the summer for school are available as FREE eBooks. The other one (”Animal Farm”) was available on the Amazon Kindle Store for just 99 cents.
Alexander wasn’t sure at first if he’d like reading a book on a screen, but it turns out he likes it a lot. It is very convenient, and he can always have his books with him.
I wonder if we’ll see many schools opt to purchase iPod Touches for students in 1:1 learning projects with the stimulus funds which are being competitively released by states this summer?
7 Comments
Anthony D
Monday, 22nd June 2009 at 8:40 am
I am fascinated by the possibility of using a handheld device to read an e-book. My only question is when using the iPod touch, isn’t the screen a bit small for reading???
Clint Buhs
Monday, 22nd June 2009 at 10:56 am
I wondered the same thing. Still, I love seeing kids take to reading, however that happens.
Wes Fryer
Monday, 22nd June 2009 at 11:06 am
Anthony: Both the free Stanza eBook application for iPhone and the free Kindle Application for iPhone allow you to increase the text size so it is pretty big. I had my doubts too, but the text size increase features are very good. Alexander has been reading with the default/medium setting and it’s worked well for him.
Keith Patterson
Monday, 22nd June 2009 at 8:07 pm
Our school district is running two pilots next year with iPod touches. One pilot will give several teachers carts of iPod touches to use in their classrooms. Another pilot will give a test group of students an iPod touch for the year which they will use in their classes. Now if they would only make a iTouch Netbook the size of a checkbook with a flip open keyboard like cellphones have!
Wes Fryer
Monday, 22nd June 2009 at 10:59 pm
What did happen to the rumored Apple netbook? I haven’t searched far and wide, but after WWDC I was expecting to read more about it since we didn’t see anything like what was rumored actually announced.
On the homepage of ISTEconnects
Monday, 22nd June 2009 at 11:07 pm
[...] Alexander’s photo reading in bed with his iPod Touch was on the homepage of the ISTEconnects blog today and in this ISTEconnects post. [...]
Keith Patterson
Tuesday, 23rd June 2009 at 7:52 am
I have been waiting for it too. I think they could reconquer the education market if they came out with it and kept it around $300.
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