E-Book Readers

Amazon Kindle

In Fall 2009, Amazon is running 5 pilot programs to introduce its Kindle DX e-book reader to higher education students (Carter 2009, 1). In addition to Arizona State University, Princeton University, Reed College, the University of Virginia, and Case Western Reserve University, Amazon has partnered with Pearson, Cengage Learning, and Wiley to bring textbooks to the Kindle (McCarthy 2009).

Early responses from students during the pilot discussed pros and cons of using the device for college (eSchool News 2009). Pros included lighter backpacks and reduced cost for textbooks (roughly half for digital versus printed versions); students also liked the built-in browser and text-to-speech features. Cons included the inability to write marginalia in the digital textbooks (the Kindle only allows crude highlighting), poor support for zooming and paging through PDFs (the majority of texts required for classes), and the location-based pagination of digital textbooks that didn't align with print version page numbers--making it difficult for teachers and students to quickly get to the same material in class.

Barnes & Noble nook

E-ink enabled E-Book Reader similar to Amazon Kindle coming out in late 2009. See website: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/.