Kindling Kindle for Learning

According to Vnunet, Amazon is developing a modified version of their electronic reader Kindle for the education space.  Vnunet writes:

Tim Bueneman, an analyst with McAdams Wright Ragen, told the Seattle Post Intelligencer that at a meeting with management it had been indicated that the company would introduce a new, stripped down, Kindle reader aimed at college and schoolchildren.

An interesting ploy for the deeply dissapointing Kindle, Amazon won’t release sales data but some estimate it’s only sold about 300,000 (I’ve also only seen one in my life), that would allow Amazon to enter the billion dollar sector that is secondary and higher education in the United States.  Chemistry textbooks already give enough kids headaches, now imagine if they have to do their reading on a computer screen.  Ugh.

I can also imagine an “Please update to newest addition of book in order to continue” screen popping up quite often, requiring every learner to buy the newest and most expensive ebook.

Negatives aside, I picture the possibility of interactive graphs within textbooks spinning off from the development of Kindle for education.  While I doubt this will ever come to fruition, the upside is incredible.  Imagine a fully modifiable graph within a textbook, something students could actually play around with and understand; rather than just a 3 color textbook print.

It seems to be in the early stages of development, so we’ll have to see what happens.  Label me an optimistic skeptic.  And that’s being nice.