Being at a school with limited tech resources, the cost of starting a program like this was a key factor. Through a "wish list" program at my school, paried with money from a generous tech coordinator, I was approved to purchase 6 devices for classroom. Here is what the cost breakdown looked like:
$250 - 6 Kindle Fires (Purchased in a "Buy 5, Get 1 Free" Bundle) $74 - 2 Kindle Fires (Bought the day after Thanksgiving) $0 - 1 Kindle Fire (Given as a Christmas gift to me from my class) $0 - 2 Kindle Fires (Given as a generous gift to the class from a parent of a student) $66 - 11 16GB Micro SD Cards Total: $390 out of my pocket, $515 for the total spent by me, parents and my school. As a matter of comparison, for $515, you could only by 2 devices, and this doesn't include cases that you would need as well. It's also worth noting that some of the costs are not just financial. While I've compared these devices to ipads, they are NOT iPads. iPads are beautiful, robust and powerful machines that are, in my mind, the cream of the crop. Nevertheless, they are really expensive. The Kindle fire is also much smaller, not as fast, or bright, and it doesn't have as nice of a camera or speaker. Nevertheless, I don't think anyt of things make it a deal breaker or a poor investment. At this point, just as chromebooks have slowly but surely chipped away at the education market for apple, I see budget tablet options like the Kindle Fire chipping away at the once "only option" of the iPad as well. Do you agree? Let me know below.
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