ZDNet Education

Christopher Dawson

Kindle Fire: Edu holy grail or one more DRM-ridden toy?

By Christopher Dawson | November 17, 2011, 10:50am PST

Summary: We’re so close I can taste it. But the business models and content just aren’t there yet.

I can’t think of too many techies who weren’t excited to get their Kindle Fires this week. Amazon’s vast library of books and Apps (a decent subset of those available on the Android App Store as well as many available only on Amazon which seem to exclude large swaths of junk apps through which we would otherwise need to wade) on a $199 device can’t be a bad thing, right? In fact, at $199, one can’t help but get fired up at the prospect of getting inexpensive devices optimized for reading and interactive content consumption. I certainly did when Amazon first unveiled the device.

So where’s the catch? It’s light, relatively rugged, small enough to work for students from Kindergarten to grad school (and large enough to be useful for those older students), and runs all sorts of educational apps. And it’s $199! Unfortunately, I think Audrey Waters over at Hack Education is probably right:

Now, I have no doubt that Amazon’s tablet will be a wildly successful commercial device, don’t get me wrong. Hell, as someone who’s a fairly loyal Amazon customer, I’ll probably buy one myself. But do I think that this is the tablet device schools have been waiting for? No. Not remotely. The price point may sound appealing, but those who are looking for a tech bargain here should read some of the fine print.

I actually still believe my original position on the Kindle Fire is correct: The technology in its Silk browser (privacy concerns aside) that leverages cloud computing power, the price point (which will keep dropping), and the form factor can absolutely enable some big leaps forward in 1:1 computing. The technology is in place and the distribution channels for the right content exists in Amazon’s toolkit. However, there is a lot missing.

As Ms. Waters points out, Amazon’s approach to DRM is fairly Draconian and absolutely doesn’t lend itself to a K12 model:

I have to wonder, if schools adopt the Kindle Fire, does that means they are required to make all textbook purchases from Amazon? I think so, unless, of course, Amazon allows other booksellers to put apps on the device. I guess that’s possible. It also means that schools are using devices that do not support the ePUB open standard (or at least, Kindles currently do not handle ePUB. It is possible too that the Kindle Fire will allow other apps to do this.)

Up to 5GB of content (various document types, other than EPUB) can be stored on the Kindle Fire and get to it via email. In theory, teachers or schools could blast documents as attachments to every student’s Kindle. However, CK12’s FlexBooks, for example, often run in the hundreds of megabytes, making email distribution impossible.

That, by the way, would be the other catch: content distribution and management. Lending models are only vaguely supported and there is currently no good way to manage a large deployment of devices. Amazon has some very cool cloud-based means of synchronizing purchased content across devices and web dashboards for managing those devices, but these must be associated with an email account, not an enterprise model. Apple, by the way, hasn’t exactly perfected this either, but they are much closer in terms of being able to deal efficiently with 1:1 iPad initiatives.

The Kindle Fire represents an important step in the evolution of digital content and delivery and I predict a lot of students (young and old) will be getting Fires for the holidays. That’s great and I hope they bring them to school and read, interact, tweet, and otherwise engage with them. However, they won’t be seeing the sorts of interactive or open textbooks that they need and educational technologists will struggle, as with many devices, to integrate them into the learning experience. And textbook publishers? I don’t see too many of them knocking on Amazon’s door for distribution deals and partnerships either.

We’re getting there, folks…but we’re not there yet. Not until Amazon (or some other distributor) makes some very serious overtures to e-learning with their DRM and distribution models.

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Techie, Amazon Kindle Fire, Christopher Dawson

Chris Dawson is a freelance writer and consultant with years of experience in educational technology and web-based systems. In 2011, he became the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., a virtual classroom and learning network SaaS provider.

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Christopher Dawson

Christopher Dawson is the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., by day and a freelance writer and educational technology consultant by night. Well, most of his colleagues at WizIQ are based in India, so really he's working with them whenever he can stay awake. He has worked for his local school district as a teacher and technology director, for the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, and for Biogen, Inc. (now Biogen-IDEC, Inc.). He has also consulted with STATNet and Cytyc Corporation and retains close ties with X2 Development Corporation (now owned by Follett Software, the supplier of the student information system he administered for several years). Follett is paying him a monthly honorarium to act as a presenter for their "SIS Voices for Student Achievement" community (he produces occasional blog posts and hosts a monthly webinar on the use of student information systems to inform data-driven instruction and school-wide change. He regularly purchases and/or recommends Dell hardware. This is because Dell makes good hardware and has truly committed itself to education in innovative ways, particularly with their "Connected Classroom" initiative. It isn't because he has dealings with the company through his role at WizIQ (which he does) or because they have provided him with long-term loans of a variety of equipment for in-depth testing (which they have). Intel (reference designer for the Classmate PCs he has implemented in his local schools) has provided him with long-term loans of Classmate PCs for testing, as have Dell and Lenovo with their educational offerings. He may report on any of these companies as his experiences with them have direct bearing on educational technology; positive reports are not necessarily an endorsement and he receives no direct financial compensation from these companies or any others. Intel paid all expenses for his attendance at the 2009 Intel Classmate PC Ecosystem Summit which he attended as the sole representative of the technology press. He was invited to attend in 2010 but his wife would have killed him if he spent 3 days in Vegas geeking out and left her home alone with a new baby. Acer provided him with a 50% discount on an Aspire One netbook in early 2009 after he tested it for 30 days through their educational seed program. He liked the netbook at the time but it has since broken and sits unused in his office. Canonical sent him Ubuntu lanyards, t-shirts, and mousepads for his kids. He stole one of the lanyards and proudly hangs his keys from it and occasionally features his 8-year old wearing an oversized Ubuntu t-shirt on his Facebook profile. Gunnar Optiks sent him a pair of computer glasses to evaluate for a holiday gift guide. He is wearing them now as he types this because they never asked for them back and they rock out loud. Seriously - they work brilliantly and make it much easier to spend 20 hours a day staring at an LCD. If they ever asked for them back, he would fork over the $99 and buy a pair. Microsoft gave him 2 free copies of Office 2010 professional, a desktop clock, and a useless book on Office 2010 when he attended the launch of Office/Sharepoint 2010. He occasionally uses the SharePoint lanyard they gave him instead of the Ubuntu lanyard for his keys, but feels dirty afterwards. Adobe provided him with a pre-release version of the CS5 Master Collection for evaluation and ultimately provided a full, licensed copy for ongoing testing of educational applications of this admittedly expensive software. Like the Gunnars, if the license expires or they come out with CS6, he'd actually go out and buy it himself. Which is saying something, because he's actually pretty cheap. Any other companies wishing to send him cool things to evaluate, wear, or otherwise adorn his kids are more than welcome to; he promises to disclose it here if he keeps any of the stuff. Finally, because WizIQ is a virtual classroom and learning network provider, Chris, as VP of Marketing, frequently interacts with, seeks out deals with, and directly or indirectly competes with a whole lot of LMS, SIS, and other Education 2.0 companies. In general, he'll limit his reporting about these companies to news that does not impact his relationship with them or with WizIQ. If he reports on them, it's because what they are doing is newsworthy or worth the attention of his readers and not because he's trying to broker some deal, damage competition, or otherwise advance his position in his day job. LMS and SIS companies, along with other online learning communities, are a pretty important part of Ed Tech. If he stops reporting on them completely, there won't be a whole lot left. He'll be sure to call out any overt conflicts of interest if they are unavoidable. Finally, Follett Software Company pays him a little tiny honorarium every month to present on their SIS Voices webinars and to write the occasional blog or discussion thread for them. Since Follett recently bought X2 (maker of an awesome web-based SIS that Chris just happened to have used, served in advisory groups for, and frequently reported on), this is probably also worth disclosing.