Most readers know that generous Iserotope readers contributed 12 Kindles last year to my students. As a result, students read more than ever before. Each Kindle has 143 high-interest books perfect for independent reading.
Despite that success, I’d like to do more next year with the Classroom Kindle Project. Here’s what I imagine:
1. Each student in the class has a Kindle. They get to keep the Kindle and take it home.
2. Students choose their own books for independent reading. The goal is to read at least 20 books.
3. Students read books for school on the Kindle. They highlight passages and write notes in the Kindle. Because the Kindles are synced to the same Amazon account, students are able to see their peers’ highlights and notes, too, and share them to the class’s Twitter, Facebook, and Findings feeds.
4. Students read newspapers and magazines on the Kindle. Every day, the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle appear on their Kindle. On Mondays, they get Time Magazine and other weeklies.
It’s a pretty neat vision. (Don’t you think?) It’s a shared Kindle Classroom, where students read together. It’s an experiment in social reading. The classroom extends past the school’s walls. Even when they’re not in class, students see each other while reading on their Kindle.
If you’re as excited as I am about this vision, please get the word out! I’m looking for 13 more Kindles (for a class set of 25). Although I’ll take any generation, I prefer the Kindle Keyboard (formerly known as the Kindle 3) because it’s the best for students.
So please tell your friends to consider donating their old Kindle to The Classroom Kindle Project. Students will be happy.