I bought a Kindle and love it largely because it is so convenient and the books are priced very fairly. But I also understand that some people do not purchase and read insane amounts of books annually; this means space is not much of an issue (one bedroom apartment).

The size of the screen may be an issue, but multiple font sizes are possible. And notes can be taken.

One thing I just thought of is how much professors would love sticking to students for not knowing the definition of a word: a built in feature of the Kindle that only takes a couple button clicks. It is already easy to open a dictionary and do it physically, but when I was in college hardly anyone–ever–actually did, and this was even after we were all killed with quiz after quiz for not knowing what words meant!

I think there will have to be some improvements in the screen before secondary schools on down make the switch.

I can’t say that I’m overly fond of the screen either, and one thing that I’ve been wondering is whether the Kindle will need to be in color before it will really be an option to schools. Color screens aren’t always necessary, but they can aid in learning.

I’m mildly dyslexic and love reading on a computer because I can change fonts, colors, backgrounds to make text more readable. The Kindle was physically painful to read. The text started floating round. It also did what I call the cube thing (text looks 3D).

I think the Kindle has great potential – especially in secondary schools. Books are not purchased each year or sold back at that level. There are major complaints about students being injured because of over loaded backpacks. Also with the kindle students would be able to make notations in the Text. There is also the potential to have auditory books paired with the text. Textbooks publishers already have to provide a auditory version of the books here in Texas. Not to mention the ability to update books with new or corrected information.

I think there will have to be some improvements in the screen before secondary schools on down make the switch.

When I first read the title, I was thinking free. Nope, there’s no way this’ll catch on. I’d never pay a premium to try to pan textbook pages on a small screen. However, I’ve personally never seen the appeal in these E-reader devices.

I’m with you there when you talk about the small screen! There’s no way my eyes would last if I had to read hundreds of pages on such a small screen.

College students usually have to scrounge around to come up with money for their books to begin with, so I can’t see them being willing to fork out the money for a Kindle so that they can read the books.

When I first read the title, I was thinking free. Nope, there’s no way this’ll catch on. I’d never pay a premium to try to pan textbook pages on a small screen. However, I’ve personally never seen the appeal in these E-reader devices.

No, definitely not free. It would be cool to see “open source” textbooks being made though.

Agreed. It needs to be like DRM-free MP3’s where you can put them on any device you want without the hassle of restrictions.

Once you can buy e-books in a universal format, usable on all readers, without using proprietary systems (that means, right from the publisher or the writer’s web), and the readers improve their bad points (while keeping the advantages over real books), they’ll take the world by storm

Something else to consider…digital books can’t be sold back. So every student would have to pay full price for the book. I think book publisher would be all over that! I bet they charge more for the digital version.

I did mention that in the article, but there are still a lot of costs they need to recoup. I think you’re right that they would charge more for the digital version, but hopefully if they start to take off the costs will drop.