Having recently completed my first year with Kindles in the classroom, I thought it best to stop and share some successes and pitfalls in using these devices.
Storage Over the course of the year, I was delighted to find that my storage solution for the Kindles held up quite well. Plugging and unplugging went very quickly. I'd still like to find an inexpensive way to keep these devices cleaner in the year to come. Because they are regularly shared between and among students, I would like to find an easy way to keep them clean, fingerprint free and less germy. I'd love some suggestions if you have them. Apps We used a variety of apps this year. Some were heavily utilized while others were quickly deleted for being light on content, obnoxious, ad-heavy, or just less user-friendly than others. Students regularly helped me update, move, and manage apps. Here are the winning "go to" apps as well as and the flops that won't be on the Kindles next fall. Flops
Winners
Technology Integration During a typical day, we used the Kindles 3-4 times a day. In math we used them for basic facts review, in spelling we used them for word work and Spelling City, in reading a few students used them for Raz Kids. Of course, throughout the week there were many opportunities to use these devices in other content areas, I just found that this didn't happen very often outside of a occasional Kahoot!. Looking into next year, I hope to find ways for students to create more meaningful content and perhaps go beyond just playing review games or basic skills tasks. Now that most of the kinks are worked out, this is one area that I will need to focus on in the year ahead. Going Naked? I debated originally whether or not I wanted to purchase cases for these devices. I ultimately decided to use whatever funds I would have spent on cases to instead purchase more devices. I have to say that I'm very happy I did. After many drops and bumps over the course of the year, I was delighted to see the resilience of the Kindles. In a carpeted classroom like mine, I do not see the need to purchase cases for these devices for the year ahead. Got any questions about my first year using Kindles? Comment below.
11 Comments
Tiffany
12/12/2016 07:36:14 pm
I'm wondering how you manage your kindles through amazon. Do you use whispercast? I have just purchase 5 for use in my kindergarten classroom and am wondering about the best way to manage the content on multiple devices at once. Thanks so much! I'm enjoying your blog.
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12/14/2016 05:10:00 pm
Tiffany, thanks for asking. I have not used Whispercast yet, though it looks intriguing. I've set up all of my devices under my one account. Then, when I search for apps on my laptop, I can "send" them to the device of my choice. For Kindle books, you can have up to 6 devices read the same books on devices paired to your account. So, if you order a kindle book, it will automatically show up in your kindle library if you device is synced. Again, this only works for 6 or less devices.
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JK
2/28/2018 09:54:59 pm
Hi.
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Karen
6/30/2018 05:43:16 am
Do you know of a way to bookmark a webpage to the home screen on the kindle fire, not a bookmark within a browser but an icon on the home screen that takes you directly to a specific webpage? I can do it easily with my Apple devices but haven’t been able to figure it out with the kindles.
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Lisa Reed
11/2/2018 04:14:39 pm
I bought some kindles to use in my classroom. How do you set them so students cannot order things with them or go on your account?
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JK
11/3/2018 02:27:22 pm
Hi.
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Alicia
11/20/2018 07:46:13 pm
1. One of your Winner apps was Google Play store. How did you load it onto all of your kindles since it does not come on it and is not in the Amazon Play store
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Alison
10/9/2019 09:06:42 pm
You can find complete instructions here: https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/get-google-play-on-fire-tablet.
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wendy
9/15/2019 02:29:50 pm
Did you set up the child account with the freetime access? I am dying because it loads thousands of content items (books, videos, apps) and I can't have any of those display - only the content I want. How did you limit the access. Everyway I try, I can easily go to the child profile and click on (and play/see) hundreds of different things. The only way I found to block content was to select each title individually (on thousands) so that's not an option. Help! I have 6 for centers in 4th grade with some great apps I found and I just can't figure how to set them up correctly.
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1/29/2020 08:11:54 am
Hello all. I'm hoping this community can help a very deserving school in Haiti get content for Fire tablets.
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Sally
6/3/2020 12:42:09 pm
Hi,
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