You don’t need a master’s degree in Statistics to understand this graph:
The growth of the Kindle Classroom Project is startling. It took 18 months for the program to reach 150 Kindles. For the next 150 Kindles, it took less time, just 11 months.
And then things went boom. In the last three weeks, the number of Kindles has skyrocketed from 300 to 512.
Most of the growth came from last week’s gift of 210 Kindles from a generous donor who would like to remain anonymous. Still, Kindles continue to stream in from people across the country — usually one at a time, but sometimes in multiples — and there is no sign there’s anything stopping this glut.
Which is all pretty great. More students are reading, more teachers are feeling supported, and what was once a cute little hobby of mine is entering a new phase in its development.
That next phase is going to be exciting. Hundreds of students from several high schools in Oakland and San Francisco are going to be reading books from the Kindle Library, taking their Kindles home, writing reviews, and talking about the books they’ve read. In short, the scale of the project has shifted.
The greatest challenge of this next phase — and greatest opportunity — is making sure the 500+ students have all the books they want to read when they want to read them.
That’s why it’s my goal to raise $5,000 by September 1.
That figure, I predict, will support the 500+ students and their reading lives through the end of the 2015-16 school year. The money will go to build the Kindle Library, to purchase additional copies of popular books, and to honor student requests of new books.
Would you like to help?
You can make a donation via PayPal (using your PayPal account or credit card), via Square (using your debit card), or via an Amazon gift card (to the email kindleclassroomproject at gmail dot com).
Or, if you’re advanced, you can become a sustaining donor by making recurring monthly donations. Choose a level (Book Lover, Bibliophile, Bibliomaniac, Bookworm) that feels comfortable to you.