The other day I tweeted:
Young people lose books. Young people do not lose Kindles. #kcp
— Mark Isero (@iserotope) January 31, 2015
Here’s the data: In the 3+ years of the Kindle Classroom Project, students have lost zero Kindles.
Let’s break it down further. There are 260 Kindles, each having access to 423 books. That’s a Kindle Library that virtually contains 109,980 books.
In the 3+ years of the KCP, students have lost zero books.
It’s mind-boggling, actually, especially if you ask a teacher who has spent years building an independent reading program. So much effort goes into building a classroom library, monitoring book check-in and check-out, exhorting students to return books, feeling sad when books get lost, and spending money replacing books rather than purchasing new ones that students have requested.
Of course, I may be jinxing myself when I write this, but here goes:
1. When a generous person donates his or her Kindle, the Kindle won’t get lost.
2. When a generous person donates money for books, the books won’t get lost.
It’s as simple as that, and that simplicity makes me very happy.