Comments on: Amazon Kindle or Bezos’ Windmill?

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By: Brian Hart

Brian Hart — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:25:46 +0000

You’re right, Cat. My mistake. I was looking at the bullet points on the Amazon product page and should’ve scrolled down to the details.

By: Cat Faber

Cat Faber — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:46:46 +0000

Brian Hart:

I have a Kindle. It *does* highlight, bookmark, and comment in the margins.

lux:

So far, using text search on my Kindle has worked admirably. It would probably work for working through a problem set as you describe, though I haven’t actually done it.

The table of contents for an ebook is accessible with one menu click and works fine for jumping from chapter to chapter. Set up properly, it should work great for section jumping too. The Kindle actually does “non-linear” quite well if the document is formatted for it. If not, I fall back on text search.

It’s also quite a bit lighter than even one college textbook, let alone a term’s worth.

By: kevin gao

kevin gao — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 05:00:39 +0000

jeff – completely agree with you that the kindle is a first pass at this. technology won’t be a barrier ultimately to a great educational experience – even though textbook usage is non-linear, nothing’s to say that an electronic device couldn’t capture the same spirit (e.g., multiple pages viewed on one screen, etc)

By: Brian Hart

Brian Hart — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:16:10 +0000

I agree with lux but would add highlighting, commenting in the margins, and bookmarking as advantages text books have over e-books. Same with technical manuals.

Me, I can’t get over the $399 price tag, esp. with the great library system we have here.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:13:27 +0000

@lux, you raise a fair point… and it has been a while since I have been in a classroom. Having said that, Kindle and the Sony Reader are first generation products and from here I see the opportunity to add note taking and bookmarking, perhaps even audio notes, along with better searching and a synonym capability. Basically if they get the hardware right, they should be able to make the software do a lot of things that would be additive to the classroom experience.

By: Noah Horton

Noah Horton — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:26:18 +0000

I think the Kindle is Amazon’s attack on bricks and mortar retailers like Borders. The only reason I ever go to Borders is when I need a book right away and cannot wait 2 days for shipping. Kindle would change the game so that getting a book from Amazon was instant, and thus faster than driving to the store.

By: lux

lux — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:57:04 +0000

Jeff, with all due respect, when was the last time you were in a classroom as a student? I can see using an e-book reader for novels or anything else you read in a cover-to-cover style, but when using a textbook you’re doing a lot more jumping around from chapter to chapter, section to section. It’s far more non-linear.

For example, say you’re working through a problem set. You’re going to be going from #1 in the problem set to that example three pages back and then maybe over to the index to find the exact page for the formula you’re looking for, and then back to the problem. And then through a similar series of jumps for the next problem, and the next, and the next.

I have real trouble seeing how an e-book reader is going to help me do that better / faster / more efficiently than a paper textbook.