By Alistair Barr
SAN FRANCISCO Oct 17 (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc
announced an initiative on Wednesday to get its Kindle e-readers
and tablet computers into schools, entering a market that has
been particularly successful for rival Apple Inc and
its iPad device.
Amazon said it has been testing Kindles in recent years with
hundreds of kindergarten through 12th grade schools in the
United States, selling the devices at bulk discounts and helping
them purchase and distribute e-books to students.
On Wednesday, the company unveiled Whispercast, a service
that lets schools manage fleets of Kindle devices from one
online location.
Administrators and teachers can set up user accounts for
each student and arrange them into one or more groups, such as a
specific class or grade level. They can also set limits on what
students can do with the devices, such as blocking Facebook and
web browsing and disabling purchasing, Amazon said.
Amazon’s education push is part of a broader effort by the
world’s largest Internet retailer to get Kindles into as many
hands as possible. The company sells Kindles at cost and hopes
to make money selling e-books and other content such as apps,
games, music and video through the devices.
“We want to make it as easy as possible for everyone to own
a Kindle device. Any time we can make that easier, we do that,”
said Jay Marine, vice president of Kindle product management.
“And we have a particular mission to increase reading,
especially among kids.”
Education is a potentially huge market for tablets and
e-readers, partly because they are easier for administrators to
manage than personal computers and laptops, according to Carl
Howe of consulting firm Yankee Group.
Apple’s iPad has been a big hit with educational
institutions in the United States. In the second quarter of
2012, the company said sales of iPads in the U.S. education
market almost doubled year-over-year to just under 1 million
units.
Amazon’s Marine said Kindles are easier to carry for
students than lots of physical books. Students who are learning
to read may also be less intimidated by big books, because the
content is housed in small, thin devices, he added.
Amazon has been offering discounts on the hardware for bulk
purchases by schools. The company does not currently offer bulk
discounts on e-books, but Marine said that may come in the
future.
Whispercast will also work in coming months with apps that
run on Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets, he added.
Clearwater High School in Florida and St Rose of Lima School
in Texas are among schools that have been testing Kindles with
students.
Clearwater High has been using about 2,000 Kindles for more
than two years and recently the test was expanded to more than
122 schools in the same district, according to Principal Keith
Mastroides.
The devices make students more enthusiastic about reading
and studying in general, he said.
Still, Yankee Group’s Howe said there are limitations on how
useful e-books can be in education. Physical books can be
re-sold easily, unlike digital versions, he noted.
It is also more difficult for a student to study from
multiple e-books at the same time, Howe explained.
“Imagine a student in a library with 10 books with book
marks in each one,” he said. “Try doing that with an e-reader.
It’s pretty hard and kind of a mess.”
Whispercast is also designed to make it easier for
businesses and non-profit organizations to use Kindle devices.
Companies can use the service to centrally distribute
documents and other items such as conference agendas or training
materials to employees or customers, Amazon said.
Article source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/17/amazon-education-idUSL1E8LHF0U20121017?type=marketsNews
Tags: education update
Source:
http://howtolearnlanguage.73shelves.com/2012/10/17/update-1-amazon-makes-big-kindle-push-in-us-schools/