Kindle and the college student?

[mooshie78]

But this ensured that I will be doing something in the iPad arena for them over a Fire. Although I will want a 7-8" iPad for them.

The 10" screen is probably better for textbooks though.

A 7-8" screen just isn't a lot of room for figures, tables etc.  Probably not a huge issue for elementary school level books, but more so for middle school and up, much less college books.  Plus once in college you'll have need to read letter size PDFs of articles in a lot of classes (I assign some in all my classes, plus whatever they read for term papers etc.).



Here's a write up of Apple's press conference this morning:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/01/apple-announces-ibooks-2-to-reinvent-textbooks.ars

[TraceyC/FL]

The 10" screen is probably better for textbooks though.

A 7-8" screen just isn't a lot of room for figures, tables etc.  Probably not a huge issue for elementary school level books, but more so for middle school and up, much less college books.  Plus once in college you'll have need to read letter size PDFs of articles in a lot of classes (I assign some in all my classes, plus whatever they read for term papers etc.).



Here's a write up of Apple's press conference this morning:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/01/apple-announces-ibooks-2-to-reinvent-textbooks.ars

Well, we already own 2 ipad1s, and the two kids in question are 1st grade and 5th grade (that works at a 2-4th grade level). I'd like something in-between the touch and the iPad for on the go - and being able to re-read their school readers at home/on the go would be nice.

But i hear you that it wouldn't be ideal either.

To go totally off topic - how do you think the itunesU side will go over?

And, it appears i will be able to create using the iBooks author thing for myself - oh how I would love to have had this when i was homeschooling full time! LOL!! As it is, it will still rock for my summer supplementing. My kids are going to love me this summer aren't they?!?!

[mooshie78]

iTunes U has been up for a long time.  It's not a new feature, they're just promoting it more and making some changes like having an app for it, rather than it just being a section of podcasts in the iTunes store and so on.

I don't see it really catching on though.  Universities are strapped for money as states keep slashing higher ed budgets.  A lot of states, including mine, have tipped over to where the universities now get more than half their money from tuition and fees, rather than a majority from state funding.  A shift from being a "public universities" to "public assisted universities."

So I don't think there will be a lot of support for posting full lectures for whole courses online etc. and essentially giving out part of a universities product for free.  I think we'll continue to see limited selection and maybe it used to provided samples of courses to entice people to enroll and pay for the full course etc.  Both people who come full time, and adults who just want to pay to take a few classes to learn something new.

[BTackitt]

I have used my Kindle(s) for 3 years as a student. No, not every book is on it, nor would every one work for it, but those that do? it's AWESOME. The used version of one of my books this semester was almost $80, the Kindle version, was $40. And this is an almost straight text based book, not many pictures at all... but those pics that are there, do look perfect on my Fire, and even the grayscale isn't bad on my main K2.