Helping Out the Kindle Classroom Project

Over the past 5-6 years I’ve met lots of interesting people at conferences across the country and online via Twitter. And through this I’ve curated a very nice professional learning network. I’m not sure where I met Mark Isero (Twitter and Google+) originally, but we’ve been following each other on the internet for a while. I’ve been impressed with his work in teaching young kids and now with helping faculty at his school in northern California. Mostly I love his idea to collect Kindles for students at his school through his Kindle Classroom Project. He describes:

The Kindle Classroom Project was created in late 2010 with the goal of offering a set of donated Kindles to lower-income, urban students to promote literacy through reading and technology.

This is such a cool idea, and I really wanted to participate by donating my Kindle. But I had a hard time parting with my beloved Kindle 3. I mean I have a laptop and an Android tablet, but I just love my Kindle 3 with red cover with a built in light for reading books. Even when I find myself touching the screen to try to turn the pages or reach the menu, it obviously doesn’t work that way, but I still love it. But I eventually convinced myself that helping Mark and his students out was more important, and it’s a good cause. Plus it’s time to upgrade my Kindle to the latest and greatest reader. 

So I ordered my new Kindle Paperwhite on Friday and then visited Mark’s blog to fill out his form for donating my old Kindle. On Tuesday my new Kindle will arrive from Amazon and my old one will be on its way to California where I’m sure Mark will put it to good use by giving one of his students the opportunity to read ebooks on a ereader. He shares on his blog that he has received 25 Kindles and  183 ebooks donated so far. That’s great, but I’m sure there are others out there who can help.

If you have an old Kindle laying around your house, you might want to consider donating it as well. Really think about if you’re using it or are you using your fancy new iPad or Android tablet more these days. Or if it’s a Kindle 3 or earlier, consider upgrading to a newer device and donating your old one to Mark’s students. You can even write it off on your taxes. We all need an additional tax break these days.