As consumers living in an era technically invaded by the power and resource of technology, it is no wonder that literally everyone, most especially youth, are drawn to new worldly advances. For quite some time now, these technologies have proven to be useful educationally when it comes to accessibility of facts, but also a huge reason for procrastination by students and a massive distractions from their learning environment. Obviously, that is why for quite some years now, many school handbooks have start banning the use of technology inside school buildings.
However, as many technological advance come afloat, it can’t be avoided that some of these might come in handy inside classrooms even though these might be seen by school officials to be related to the “no cell phones, iPod’s, camera, etc. inside school buildings” rule. One of these devices is the ever popular Amazon Kindle.
Kindles are known to be electronic book readers made by one of the iconic companies of the Internet era, Amazon. According to nytimes.com, the company unveiled the Kindle Fire in September 2011, a tablet meant to compete with Apple’s iPad, but for a far lower price — $199 vs. a starting price of $499 for the iPad. The price of the newest basic Kindle dropped to $79. The Kindle Fire will use a new browser, Amazon Silk, which the company said will lead to better performance than the iPad or other competitors.
“Nooks and Kindles are super useful; I can have more than 1,000 books in such a lightweight item,” said Senior Meredith Headtke. “Also, the books you purchase normally at a bookstore are expensive; E-books are cheaper. In the long run it’ll save money.”
Senior Nathan Pruitt seems to agree with Headtke: “Yes Kindles should be allowed in schools because it’s cheaper instead of buying a whole lot of books and it’s also a big help in a lot of English classes. It serves a purpose,” said Pruitt. “But a disadvantage of allowing Kindles in the school would be that if its misplaced or stolen around the school, they might never be found.”
So, if the Kindle only provides buyers easy access to books, maybe you are asking what would be the issue of allowing this in classrooms without the permission of teachers? It is simply because of the mere fact that it also has internet browsers. Meaning, students will have access to the Internet just like the other devices they own, which are banned according to the student handbook.
“I personally think teachers should let students use Nook, Kindles, etc. because they [teachers] should be happy that kids are reading,” said Headtke. “Technology is changing and UHS and other schools are going to have to learn to adapt to it.”
Junior Miguel Fierro uses a Kindle in the UHS Mac Lab.
