Although I still read paper versions of books, I am well and truly hooked on my Kindle, and I think it has huge potential for Australian education as does any other e-book reader/tablet. The Kindle I have is the 6″ version: very portable and great for reading fiction on.
Did you see that this week Amazon have released the 9.7″ KindleDX for international distribution?. This is the one I think that has the most appeal for text-books. 
If you are considering educational uses of an e-book reader, below are just some of the sites for Free e-Books that I have found. It would be great if you could leave a comment with links to others you have found.
Tit-bits
You can also use some free software called Mobi Pocket Creator to make the conversions
* When your Kindle arrives, it is registered on your Amazon account. If you don’t want students to access WhisperNet from that Kindle, then go into your account via the internet and de-register it. If on a later occasion you wanted to re-register the Kindle you just need to use the online Register facility to connect the Serial number of the device to your Amazon account again.
* not having WhisperNet access won’t affect the working of the Kindle because all the books are stored locally. So say you are lending out a classic you got as a free e-Book:
1. Save the classic on the library computer
2. Attach the Kindle to the library computer via its USB cable: the computer sees it as an extra drive
3. Send the book to the Kindle
4. View the Kindle and move the file you sent to it into Documents.
5. Disconnect the Kindle and bring up its home page - the book should be there.
* The same procedure will work for any .mobi files you have available. It seems to me that it means you can move any files you have legitimate free access to from one Kindle to another and never need to give than “loan” Kindle WhisperNet access.
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…and, breaking news: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/amazon-cracks-open-the-kindle/?src=twt&twt=nytimesbits
The whole idea of a digital book/magazine/news reader excites me. But I think I might wait until after January 27th, and see what transpires…
Yes that is interesting Darcy- almost turning the Kindle into the same sort of platform as an iPhone if you can add apps.
Why January 27 Damien?
Hi Kerrie, I am fascinated by your comments here, not ever having had access to a kindle - in South Africa most schools don’t even have books, let alone electronic ones! I am most fortunate to be the tl in a well-stocked library, and am intrigued by the thought of having kindles in stock. Do they have the same effect on one’s eyes as staring at a computer screen all day?
I really enjoy your posts,
regards,
Penny
I work in a school library and I don’t have a kindle yet, so I found this fascinating. Once you lend the ebook to the student, is there a return date or expiry date?
Penny, the Kindle screen is not backlit so you don’t have the glare problem. It mainly allow you to vary the size of text and amount of white space. However in a darkened space you need a light.
Michelle I would imagine you would lend it out the same way you lend other books - record it in your system. I’m sure people will be grappling with these scenarios this year in Australian schools.
Now that the iPad is here, how do you think it compares to the kindle? I haven’t got my hands on one yet, but there seems to be a lot of hype at the moment.
Shirley, it seems to me we need to be comparing the iPad with the KindleDX.
The attractiveness of the iPad is the colour format and the fact that it will do more than just be an eBook reader. The ebook format it uses is ePub which Sony is claiming has more books available than Amazon Kindle. The downside may be the fact that they haven’t negotiated the connectivity through wireless that Amazon has and the user has to set up a download plan whereas in Kindle download costs are incorporated in the cost of the book (and that is attached to your Amazon account)
Lots to think about
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[…] I must admit that I’m beginning to cast envious glances at anyone who has a Kindle. One of these people is Kerrie Smith who has recently written Kindling along: an update of my Kindle experiences and this has inspired me to surreptitiously add this item to my ‘possible birthday presents’ list on the fridge at home. Heh, heh… I’m a reader you see, and one of the comments on How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read & Write says “Amazon’s early data suggest that Kindle users buy significantly more books than they did before owning the device, and it’s not hard to understand why. The bookstore is now following you around wherever you go.“ If you are looking for some FREE e-Books, you could try the Book Depository, ManyBooks.net or FreeKindleBooks.org. […]
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