3 ms·

I think this was a biased study -- they were used in upper-level politics classes in the Woody Woo school, which require lots of discussion about the reading it

by kalid 17y ago

I think this was a biased study -- they were used in upper-level politics classes in the Woody Woo school, which require lots of discussion about the reading itself (1300+ printed pages). Using kindles for paper-saving purposes misses the point of the device [they can save paper by having people print double-sided (or 4 pages per side) and handing out magnifying glasses ;)]. If the kindles were used for PDFs for math/engineering/cs classes, I think there'd be much better reception. You'd save the trouble of lugging around giant books, where the focus is less on the book as a source, and more on examples/understanding the material. You can't exactly plow through math papers so it's ok to have one page flip every 5 minutes. Also, PDFs are rendered page by page so you can easily jump to a certain one if needed. I have a kindle and ebook readers are definitely not for detailed, interactive experiences. The main convenience is having dozens of books on hand that you can read or reference (but not mark up) easily.

jacobolus 17y ago
This pilot answered the question: “are kindles good devices for reading-intensive social science courses”. The answer is clearly “no, or at least, not yet”.
ghshephard 17y ago
Re: "If the kindles were used for PDFs for math/engineering/cs classes, I think there'd be much better reception." Absolutely not. I have a K1, K2, iPhone Kindle, and read about 200-300 pages/week on them. They are great for fiction, long reading, essay reading but are absolute fails when it comes to Mathematics, technical texts, diagrams, or anything with colored illustrations. And, don't underestimate the amount of rapid random flipping you do in a mathematics text book - bouncing around pulling up forms for integration by parts, trying to track down lemma's for proofs, etc... The kindle is _useless_ for rapid random page flipping - sequential or footnote read-n-back only (The footnote navigation is actually pretty good). Finally - PDFs on a kindle are converted into free form text (poorly, particularly with diagrams - a page which can normally handle about 5 diagrams on paper, can only handle 2 on a kindle) - you lose the page by page rendering, except in those rare cases where you pull them over as page-images, and trust me - fast way to bring your Kindle (K1/K2) to a screeching halt - also unreadable. I have high hopes for the iPad in this space, but time will tell. I'll be waiting in line though when it comes out.
- newhouseb 17y ago
  I used to have a K2, but upgraded to a DX (or rather was gifted one). It's just barely big enough to read Academic two-column papers without making your eyes bleed, and the native PDF support works great, which is fantastic. But regardless, the thing is still useless in a live classroom discussion environment where you need to page faster than 0.2 pages per second.

by kalid 17y ago

jacobolus 17y ago

This pilot answered the question: “are kindles good devices for reading-intensive social science courses”. The answer is clearly “no, or at least, not yet”.

ghshephard 17y ago

Re: "If the kindles were used for PDFs for math/engineering/cs classes, I think there'd be much better reception." Absolutely not. I have a K1, K2, iPhone Kindle, and read about 200-300 pages/week on them. They are great for fiction, long reading, essay reading but are absolute fails when it comes to Mathematics, technical texts, diagrams, or anything with colored illustrations. And, don't underestimate the amount of rapid random flipping you do in a mathematics text book - bouncing around pulling up forms for integration by parts, trying to track down lemma's for proofs, etc... The kindle is _useless_ for rapid random page flipping - sequential or footnote read-n-back only (The footnote navigation is actually pretty good). Finally - PDFs on a kindle are converted into free form text (poorly, particularly with diagrams - a page which can normally handle about 5 diagrams on paper, can only handle 2 on a kindle) - you lose the page by page rendering, except in those rare cases where you pull them over as page-images, and trust me - fast way to bring your Kindle (K1/K2) to a screeching halt - also unreadable. I have high hopes for the iPad in this space, but time will tell. I'll be waiting in line though when it comes out.

newhouseb 17y ago
I used to have a K2, but upgraded to a DX (or rather was gifted one). It's just barely big enough to read Academic two-column papers without making your eyes bleed, and the native PDF support works great, which is fantastic. But regardless, the thing is still useless in a live classroom discussion environment where you need to page faster than 0.2 pages per second.