Kindle great for studies

One of the coolest educational “toys” I’ve seen recently is the Amazon Kindle.

It is thin and lightweight and can hold up to 1,500 books for the smaller one and 3,500 for the bigger one. There are more than 400,000 titles to choose from and that number keeps growing. If a book doesn't come with a Kindle version, Amazon.com provides a link for you to tell the publisher that you'd like to read it on Kindle and they pass the word on.

Kindle books and periodicals are delivered in less than a minute and you don’t need a computer to download many of them. You don't have to pay for Wi-Fi or search for hotspots in your neighborhood. You can even download books when you are out of the country because it has Global 3G.

Best of all, the Kindle versions of books are much cheaper in most cases. Some books that run close to $30 for the hard copy are only about $10 for the Kindle version. Even when the discount isn't that great, it's still less than the hard copy by a couple of dollars or more most of the time.

The latest version of the Kindle has a text-to-speech feature, meaning Kindle can read to your child — a bonus for those of you with dyslexic children. For kids who have problems reading on computer screens (like my son), the Kindle is not a problem because it reads just like you are reading off of paper. There's no glare.

The educational value in the Kindle for me is the fact that I can get so many titles for my son to read or listen to at a lower cost and much quicker than I could with traditional books. The Kindle Store boasts more than 30,000 textbooks and more than 16,000 children's chapter books. So if we are learning about the Lewis and Clark adventure, I can quickly go to the Kindle Store and locate children's Lewis and Clark Kindle books to help enhance the lesson. Some of those titles are only a dollar.
As a bonus, the Kindle is lightweight and easier for my son to carry with him to the baby-sitter's house or on road trips (it helps that he doesn't get car sick).

I also can't deny the "cool" factor. He loves showing off the technological devices that I buy him for educational purposes. When I got him the iPod Nano, I was downloading TV shows from Discover Channel and the History Channel and he didn't mind because he was holding this sleek, cool new gadget that his friends really admired.

The cost (between $139 and $189) may seem overwhelming at first, but is counter-balanced by the reduced cost of Kindle books. Plus there are literally thousands of free books that can be put on the Kindle. Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org) has many classics you can put on your Kindle for free. The Kindle Store also has plenty of free titles to choose from.

If you already own an iPhone or iPod Touch, you don't have to buy the Kindle. You can get the Kindle App for free and start downloading Kindle books onto your device. For information go to Kindle for iPhone or iPod Touch. There's also apps for your computer and other smart phones.

There are many other features to the Kindle that make it such a cool gadget. So check out the Amazon Kindle and read all the specs, testimonials and such. It really is a cool device that will make educating your child a lot easier, if not cheaper in the long run.