Using Kindles to Increase Available Book Choices for Visually Impaired Students Teresa Osborne Teacher of the Visually Impaired/COMS Floyd County Schools

Overview of the proposal and rationale

Original problem was that young visually impaired students did not have access to a lot of books that were of interest to them and that were also in an accessible format (either large print or audible edition).

The plan to correct this problem was to find a portable and inexpensive device that would allow them access to many more books.

We needed something: Durable With a good warranty Relatively inexpensive (so several could be bought) With internet accessibility Easy to use With available protective cases and headphone ports Cool enough that students would want to use them

The Kindle Fire looked like the perfect fit.

It came with: all the things we thought we needed PLUS They came with a year of Amazon Prime which would allow them to download many books and games for free!

The Plan: Purchase 8 Kindle Fires (Child Edition) Allow visually impaired students to use them for access to books of interest on their grade level in an accessible format (either large print or audio) Calculate the effectiveness of the trial by looking at Accelerated Reader points.

Here is what really happened.

Ordering Amazon is the only place to buy Kindle Fires Amazon only accepts payment by credit card Red tape delayed the delivery of the Kindles until after Thanksgiving

Once they arrived, I tried to set them up myself.

By the time school started back after Christmas break, I thought I had them working. By the time school started back after Christmas break, I thought I had them working. I was wrong.

Problem: I had set them up at home and couldn’t figure out how to reset them to work in school.

I had to call Amazon and talk to a tech. That led to calling Floyd County Schools Technology Department. Which led to calling Amazon back again.

FINALLY I got a Kindle into the hands of the first student.

On to another school…… After a few hours and the help of the school tech, 3 more were in the hands of students.

At the next school……. another road block

I must not have read the fine print. I bought 8. Now what? With Kindle Fire/Child Edition, you can set up 4 child accounts

Back to Amazon help. I had to set up a dummy account for the remaining 4 Kindles but now they can’t access the Prime Account.

The remaining 2 students do not have their Kindles yet. As of now……. The remaining 2 students do not have their Kindles yet. And there are other things we are still working out.

Public Library I met with the technology people at the Floyd County Public Library. They showed me how the students could access thousands of books for their Kindles that would be in audio or e-book formats.

But…… Each student has to go to the library with a parent to get a library card. As of today, none have.

Another problem…… Kindle will enlarge print, and many books are available with a text-to- speech option.

But……… These options are not available in books for young children that include pictures.

Conclusion The 4 students with Kindles have earned a few more AR points with the Kindles than they had in the past by just reading regular books.

If we can work out a few more bugs in the system, this might just work!

Thank you KVEC for the opportunity to try out this plan. I will keep on trying to get these working.

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