Kindles in a 5th Grade Classroom

*Disclaimer: For those of you out there in cyberspace who are not members of Eastern Oregon University's Technology for Educators class, that last post and the one you are about to read might sound a little random. Well, hang in there because there is going to be more where that came from thanks to that class requiring me to write posts about using various forms of technology in the classroom, among other things. Now that you've been forewarned, please continue...*

Kindles in a 5th Grade Classroom

All was surprisingly quiet in that 5th Grade Classroom. Lazy afternoon sunlight wormed its way around the blinds and into the cozy if disorganized learning environment. All that could be heard was the soft murmuring of students reading quietly to themselves during the class period known as Lit Block. I walked around the room, watching for signs of students struggling in their reading or being distracted while the teacher sat at his desk in the corner and Dibble-tested a student. I was happy to note that everyone seemed to be on task and making good progress--these were smart, well behaved kids--they had an intelligent and kind-yet-firm teacher.

I was lamenting my lack of a good book to read and the time to read it when I noticed some of the students were not using books, not in the traditional sense, at least. Instead they were reading off of Amazon Kindles. I was intrigued. The closest thing that I had to that growing up was when Dad bought a set of old adventure books (e.g. the original Jungle Book and Robinson Crusoe) on CD so that we could read them on our computers. I'm sorry to say that never caught on with the Clark kids because we didn't want to take the time to fire up a computer (which took forever to load back then!) and go searching in a file index for a book when we could just walk over to the shelf and pick one out and start reading. 

But this was different. It was a similar concept, to be sure, but now that technology had progressed, and with the millennial generation growing up more computer literate, these digital books were now much more accessible to students. Indeed, the students who had them all seemed to be fully engaged as they starred intently at those grey screens, murmuring the words under their breath as they read. As this post attests, I had decided in that moment to file away the observation for future reference. Perhaps I'll use such technology in my own classroom someday.

Until next time...

Jared D. Clark