Kindles for Humanities 12 Honors

Tomorrow, the students in my Humanities 12 Honors senior class will receive the Kindles they will be using throughout the entire school year.  I thought of this project last May when I purchased my own Kindle.  I always thought, "I'll never use an e-reader-I love my books too much."  Well, that changed.  I decided to buy a Kindle because I wanted instant gratification.  I no longer want to wait until I had a chance to drive to Barnes and Noble to pick up a book.

Overall, the Kindle Touch ($99) was the best choice for me.  I decided not to get the Kindle Fire, because I didn't need all of the other features that it came with-I just wanted to be able to read.  Plus, I felt as if the Kindle Fire would be difficult to read off of (almost like a computer screen), and the Kindle Touch reads like a book.  

One week after I purchased my Kindle (and after I finished reading two books on it), our Principal at Waldwick High School, Kevin Carroll, sent the staff an email notifying us of the WEF (Waldwick Education Foundation) grants.  Each year, the WEF accepts applications for grants, due by July 1st of that school year.  So, after a lot of work at figuring out the logistics of ordering, I wrote the grant and submitted it.  In early August, I found out that we received the grant, and we were able to purchase the Kindles.  We faced a few problems.  After sending in the check, I received a voicemail from my Best Buy rep not to send the check until I spoke with him-apparently, with the release of the new Kindle Fire, the Kindle Touch was on back order. The rep I worked with was able to work magic, and found us the last 20 Kindle Touches that Best Buy carried.  

This past week, we received the Kindles and I downloaded the necessary books the students will need: Medea (Euripides), A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens), Hamlet (Shakespeare), Antigone (Sophocles), and Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte).  Of course I just realized I forgot to download Crime and Punishment, but we won't need that until the spring. It's amazing that all of the novels we needed for this year were free in the Kindle library.  

This blog will highlight the experiences my class has with the Kindles and 21st century learning.