Teaching Differently

A Different Way To Pay

Tampa, Florida, teachers agree to an evaluation and results-based compensation formula.

Audio Embed: Dave Ross, KIRO-FM/Seattle, 7/23/10.

A Different Way To Read: Clearwater, Florida
goes wireless, replacing paper with e-books.

Douglas Clifford / St. Petersburg Times

By Rebecca Catalanello, St. Petersburg Times, 6/2/10

Clearwater (FL) High School next year will replace traditional textbooks with e-readers. The gadgets will be fully loaded with all the textbooks students need, minus all the paper.

For rising junior Bennie Niles (above) it could mean accessing English, math and physics texts via a handheld device more on par with the technology he and his peers use every day.

"It gives you the ability to be more fluent," Niles said as he held a Kindle reader. "It helps you have a better understanding and comprehension of the text."

Though the school hasn't settled on a vendor, school officials are negotiating with Amazon Kindle to try to equip all 2,100 students with the 10-ounce devices this fall.

Already, the school issued e-readers to all 100 of its teachers.

Clearwater could be the first high school attempting such a sweeping shift with the Kindle.

John Just, assistant superintendent for the district's management information systems, said Kindle officials told the district that no other high school had embarked on such an effort. Schools elsewhere have used e-readers, but mostly on a per class basis. A Massachusetts boarding school recently made waves by completely digitizing its library.

That school is Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, Massachusetts, which began the process of giving away its library books and replacing them with digital versions as available in 2009. Dr. James Tracy is headmaster and explained the decision... Then Jeff Young of the Chronicle of Higher Education talked about the trend toward electronic textbooks.

Audio Embed: BBC, PRI & WBUR's Here & Now 9/22/09, Host: Robin Young.

Jeff Young mentioned how Kindle teamed up with universities across the country and began selling electronic textbooks to students:


Video: Newsy.com, 8/11/09

The various e-readers employ different file formats that currently limit their ability to read material from a single seller. And it's still an open question whether it'll catch on, or the additional cost of e-readers make the move too expensive... But since these reports Amazon lowered prices on Kindles in response to competition, and no doubt offers bulk rates for mass purchases like Clearwater's.