15 mins of SSR per day + no reading for HW = 4 books per year. 15 mins of SSR per day + HW = 14-18 books. #kcp
— Mark Isero (@iserotope) November 21, 2013
Kindle Classroom Project Update, November 2013
Well, it’s already the middle of November, so I’m a bit late with this update, but I’d like to report that October was a strong one for the Kindle Classroom Project! Here are some highlights:
1. There were tons of books donated.
We broke a record! A total of 54 books were donated in October, smashing the previous mark of 35 set in March. That’s nearly two books a day! (Now there are 363 books in the library!)
The books came from everywhere — from sustaining donors and new donors. But most of all, half of the books came from former students. And that makes me very happy.
Here’s a neat little chart to show the growth of our Kindle library:
2. Kindle batteries faltered, but donors came to the rescue.
I have to be honest: I was bummed when I learned that 10 to 15 of the Kindles, mostly Kindle 2s, had faulty batteries. Though it’s normal for electronic products to become obsolete after a few years, I did not like the prospect of retiring a large portion of the Kindle collection.
So as usual, I put out a call for batteries, which Amazon does not want us to buy but proudly sells on its website, and generous donors answered. Thank you to Laura (San Francisco, CA), Wil (New York, NY), Erin (San Jose, CA), and Mary (Parkersburg, IA) for the nifty batteries.
And then I surprised myself by fixing seven of the Kindles, including one that had a cracked screen. This took minor handyman skills! It gives me the confidence that I will be able to repair Kindles in the future. That said, batteries are cheap, whereas screens are not. That’s why I’m hopeful that the students will continue to take care of their Kindles instead of smooshing them in backpacks.
3. The Kindles are in five classrooms now.
My move to New York this summer and back in September meant that the Kindles got to experience the country in the back of a van. The movers did an excellent job taking care of the devices. My thinking is that only one was damaged as result of the 6,000-mile trek.
The move-and-move-back also meant that it was impossible to get the Kindles into students’ hands immediately at the beginning of the school year. It took a while, especially with so many new books to load on the Kindles, but I’m happy to announce that now all is well.
It’s also an honor to work with Natalia and Tess, two excellent teachers who care deeply about their students and their reading lives. If they let me, maybe I’ll feature them here on Iserotope!
4. The Kindle Classroom Project is getting more and more donors.
Some are sustaining donors, who have given repeatedly. Others are new. Some like my students’ Amazon Wishlist. Others find the project on Facebook. However folks find Iserotope or the Kindle Classroom Project, I am grateful.
In October, 35 people donated. (A few donated twice in the same month!) Isn’t that wonderfully insane?
Here they are: Nicole (Quincy, MA; sustaining donor), LeAnne (Fremont, CA; sustaining donor), Iris (San Diego, CA; sustaining donor), Laura (San Francisco, CA; sustaining donor), Elaine (Stanford, CA), Deanna (New York, NY), Collins (Kentfield, CA), Michael (San Francisco, CA), Amanda (San Jose, CA), Henry (San Francisco, CA), Rasheel (Mission Viejo, CA), Cindy (San Francisco, CA), Melva (San Francisco, CA), Eric (London, UK), Camila (Berkeley, CA), Ian (Mountain View, CA), Dave (Oakland, CA; sustaining donor), Stella (Hialeah, FL), May (Oakland, CA), Susan (Tacoma, WA), Kimberlynn (Boston, MA), Joey (Fremont, CA), Kyle (Sacramento, CA), Jillian (Livermore, CA), Pedrito (San Francisco, CA), Laura (Santa Cruz, CA), Katherine (New York, NY), Kati (Newark, CA), Stephanie (Daly City, CA), Matt (Fremont, CA), Fred (Albany, CA), Dawn (Newark, CA), Sam (North Potomac, VA), Mary (Parkersburg, IA; sustaining donor), and Wil (New York, NY; sustaining donor).
It’s all very great. As I’ve said before, donations come in waves. September was the month of Kindles. It seemed like one came every other day. And October was the month of books. November is almost halfway done, and so far, things are fairly quiet on the donations front. They’re certainly not quiet in the schools, where students are reading avidly on their Kindles, requesting books, and getting interested in reading again.
Stay tuned for some stories from the classrooms!
Book Review: The Circle, by Dave Eggers (★★★☆☆)
The Circle is definitely a page turner, a thriller, and I like its premise (or at least what I think its premise is): What would happen if Google, Facebook, and Amazon became one company? Nothing in this book is too far off or too far-fetched. It’s all happening right now — or at least soon — and it’s scary.
The book is this generation’s 1984. George Orwell’s three mantras, including “War is Peace,” are substituted with their more modern versions, including “Sharing is Caring.” “Circlers” also believe that “everything must be known,” which is just a small step from Google’s current mission to make all the world’s information available to everyone. If everyone lived transparently (Mark Zuckerberg’s hope), there would be less crime and other nefarious deeds. Why keep things secret if you’re living a reputable life?
Some critics of this book don’t like the main character Mae and call her gullible. Why can’t Mae be more like 1984‘s Winston? My thinking is that Dave Eggers wanted Mae to be this way. He wants to remind us that we are Mae. Though we want to be some heroic figure that will fight against our impending doom, the reality is that we’re not. We just want to check our phones and send tweets.
Overall, I really liked this book and ripped through it, but I wish it were a bit shorter and tightened up. There are several subplots, and too much of the writing relied on dialogue. But I think that some of my students would like it. It definitely sends a powerful and scary message of where we’re headed.
If you’ve read The Circle, please leave your thoughts!
It’s Halloween: 6 Kindles come back from the dead
I have to say, I’m pretty pleased with myself.
A few weeks ago, I reported that at least eight Kindles no longer worked because of faulty batteries. Amazon didn’t want to help, so I asked loyal and generous Iserotope readers to purchase replacement batteries (for $13 – $18 each), and as usual, they came through quickly.
Thank you to Mary (Parkersburg, IA), Wil (New York, NY), and Laura (San Francisco, CA) for taking care of business! (And thank you, LeAnne (Fremont, CA), for the encouraging words — that I should just go for it.)
So today was the big day. Would the replacement batteries work? Would I even know how to open a Kindle? Would I get electrocuted in the process?
In general, I’m not too handy, especially with home improvement projects. When I was little, my extended family teased me mercilessly about my inability to do anything with my hands. There’s no way that I would change my car’s engine oil, for example. Hang up a painting in my house? Not likely.
But that anxiety hasn’t extended to technology. Over the years, I’ve had no trouble dabbling with old computers, taking them apart, installing Linux here or some RAM there. By no means am I a hardware techie, but for some reason, I don’t get anxious dealing with electronics. Once, I built a makeshift computer lab in my classroom, complete with 18 Pentium III computers that had no business working. It took a long time, but it was worth it.
That is all to say that this morning, there were eight Kindles that weren’t working, that Amazon told me to give up on. They would cost $560 to replace.
This afternoon, I am happy to report, six of those Kindles have been resuscitated, revived from imminent e-waste recycling doom, and ready again to be read starting this Friday by willing and eager ninth graders in the Bay Area.
But I have to say, the process wasn’t always easy. Amazon is a bit like Apple in that they don’t want you hacking into your (their?) stuff. I had to find tiny tiny screwdrivers and practice my patience.
And then, there were a few freaky moments. Here are a couple strange (even spooky, because it’s Halloween season) things that happened:
1. A replacement battery didn’t revive one Kindle, but brought another Kindle to life. But here’s what’s freaky: The first Kindle worked with a different battery (exact same brand).
2. One Kindle didn’t come back to life when charged into one wall socket, but when brought to another wall socket, it turned on. (There was nothing wrong with the first wall socket; it charged several other Kindles.)
Is there any explanation? Please let me know so I can sleep better tonight.
All right, so all of this work leaves just two more Kindles in need of replacement batteries. I’ve revised the Amazon Wishlist, so if you want to help out, all you have to do is click here. The battery is at the top of the list. For around $15 (after tax), you can get a Kindle back into a student’s hands!
“I gotta work my mind.”
Juan, a ninth grader from San Francisco, is reading Street Life: Poverty, Gangs, and a Ph.D., a memoir by Dr. Victor Rios (and a generous gift from Dave in Oakland).
Today Juan came up to me and said, “Mark, I have a quote.” Juan likes collecting and sharing memorable excerpts from the books he reads.
And then he began reading from the scene in which Victor realizes that dropping out of school and working as a gardener will not help him get out of poverty:
At the time, I didn’t realize that the people who owned the nice houses, and drove Mercedes, and owned little dogs with curly white hair, weren’t gardeners. They were doctors, lawyers, engineers, and business people. They were people who worked with their minds. They were people who had gone to college and gotten an education. While my mother had taught me a hard work ethic, I did not realize that there were two types of hard work. Here I was thinking that to make it out of poverty I had to work my body when in reality I had to work my mind.
“What do you think?” Juan asked.
I said, “No, what do you think?”
Juan said, “This dude is me. Except he dropped out and I haven’t yet. I gotta work my mind.”