Amazon Makes Major Push to Integrate Kindles into U.S. Classrooms

  • Amazon has tested its Kindles on students in grades from kindergarten to high school and hopes to sell the devices in bulk at a discounted price to school districts, reports Yahoo Finance. Amazon would then profit as districts purchased e-books on the devices.
  • Amazon has increased its appeal by introducing Whispercast, a “service that lets schools manage fleets of Kindle devices from one online location,” explains the post.
  • Whispercast allows administrators and teachers to block websites like Facebook from the devices, while also setting up user accounts for students and grouping students by class and grade level.
  • Jay Marine, VP of Kindle product management explains that Amazon wants “to make it as easy as possible for everyone to own a Kindle device.” But Yahoo Finance says that while Amazon’s mission to convince children to read more is noble, the company’s primary goal is to sell more product.
  • E-readers provide some tangible benefits for students. The devices are small and light, as opposed to bulky books. This also makes an e-reader less intimidating, as the student may not realize how many pages they are going through as they tap through the pages, rather than flipping them.
  • However, e-books also have their drawbacks. E-books cannot be resold, which places financial burden on those who rely on the resale of books. Also, it is difficult to study from multiple e-books at once, as people do with physical books.

No Comments Yet

You can be the first to comment!

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.