This is one of those blog posts where the title, well, it basically says it all. Today Amazon announced the Kindle Textbook Rental program, a partnership with a number of publishers to provide "tens of thousands" of textbooks to students for a period of anywhere from 30 to 360 days, saving up to 80 percent of the cost of buying one new. Rented textbooks can be read on a PC, Ma, iPad, iPod, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Phone or Android phone. Extending Amazon's Whispersync feature stores margin notes and text highlights in the cloud, so if a student renews the rental or buys the digital textbook, their notes are still there. Pretty nifty.
From what I see here the program is mainly designed for college students at this point, but I wonder if we'll see this in K12. Granted, textbooks in K12 are purchased by districts, a much different scenario than students buying their own. Maybe districts could purchase rental licenses for student mobile device access? Or get a credit if students rented their own?
Check it out at www.amazon.com/kindletextbooks.
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