ebooks & readers

[snakebyte]

Hey Guys and Girls

 

Is anyone out there using ebook readers in their school? If so, what reader do you use and where to you buy your ebooks from?

 

Thanks

[pcstru]

We bought some kindles - they are used specifically for 'better readers' groups. We currently buy from Amazon or download from guttenberg and other sources of free books. There are some issues. You can't set a proxy on a Kindle and Amazon don't support them in a 'corporate' environment. If you don't want people to be able to bankrupt the school by buying books in an uncontrolled manner, you need to disable 1 click ordering etc on the Amazon account or better still, de-register the kindles when they are out. Books bought from Amazon can be downlaoded onto different devices a limited number of times. If you want to share a book among a number of kindles, you will quickly use up your allocation and this has implications given that equipment is likely to have a limited lifetime (although I suppose libraries have to replace books when they wear out).

 

IMO the technology is good (I didn't think I would like reading on a kindle but I much prefer it to a book) but someone still needs to come up with a content management solution that's suitable and affordable for a school.

[snakebyte]

Thanks for that! Kindles aren't a great idea because, like you said, they don't support a proxy! Imagine getting a 3g Kindle and giving 12-18 year olds unrestricted access to the internet!

 

We we're thinking of a Sony reader or something like that, but we would have to buy the books from Waterstones etc (if the books aren't available for free) but they said something about:

 

"However, due to DRM issues you would only be able to use this on a few different eReaders and from one computer. This would also means that you are notable to transfer them between readers or computers. "

 

What does this mean (I think its clear I don't know much about ebooks, and I prefer paper!!)

[Haptic]

Hello snakebyte,

 

I have PM'd you.

 

Chris