Let's talk about The Kindle. I have mixed feelings about it. Imagine a pie chart. 90 percent of that pie chart would be NO, I HATE THIS IDEA! Let me tell you why. I like the smell of books. I like the feel of books. I like underlining lines in books and writing, "YES I AGREE!" in the margins (that was for you, Bud). I love bookstores. I loved working in one as a teenager. I loved the bookshelves, the cappuccino machine, the people who wandered into the bookstore. I like putting a paperback in your back pocket or front pocket. I like "dog earring" a page. I love bookmarks. You don't get any of that with The Kindle. Another reason I dislike the idea of The Kindle is that it reminds me of a Ray Bradbury story I read (in a BOOK) as a kid. The story was "Someday" by Isaac Asimov. You also can't read your Kindle on an airplane. This person was told to turn his off. You don't get asked to turn your book off. To me, a book made of paper and glue and ink is WARM. A digital screen is COLD.
On a positive note (the 10 percent part of me that is OK with The Kindle) I like the immediacy of information, and I can imagine teaching a class one day (close to my retirement) when every kid has one of these in the classroom. Adding to the plus side--the "reading to you" capability would be good for the very young and the very old when they can't read or their eyesight goes. The Kindle can also bring more people to reading--period. According to this Newsweek article ("The Future of Reading"), the number of adults who read a book-any book--is down from last decade.If you are on the "green" bandwagon, you may like the idea that the Kindle will save trees. Check this out: "Microsoft's Bill Hill has a riff where he runs through the energy-wasting, resource-draining process of how we make books now. We chop down trees, transport them to plants, mash them into pulp, move the pulp to another factory to press into sheets, ship the sheets to a plant to put dirty marks on them, then cut the sheets and bind them and ship the thing around the world. "Do you really believe that we'll be doing that in 50 years?" he asks.
Also, since I am pretty OK with technology anyway, that side says, "Bring it." After all, when I started teaching, I used the overhead and transparency sheets (and still do, at times) but now I use a laptop and PowerPoint to give notes. I have a class Facebook page and I use my Flip camcorder to film kids debating and then project it onto the screen from the laptop. I AM a tech person, it appears.
HOWEVER.... My heart will always be hiding out in the corridors of the bookstores, though, with the smell of the coffee and the books and the sound of NPR playing in the background. Or at least, you'll find me there when I'm not chasing around two boys who enjoy throwing Legos at each other. Sigh.
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