Search form

Back to Blog

Amazon Slashes Children's Titles For Fire

kindle fireApple and its iPad have the lion’s share of the educational market locked up, but Amazon and its Kindle Fire are giving administrators reason to pause before blindly ordering up tablets from Cupertino.

Amazon is offering 47 classic children’s books for 99 cents each. That is an impressive price cut from the typical $7.77 the book typically cost. Among the illustrated versions of classic tales are Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle," Rudyard Kipling's "How the Leopard Got His Spots," and Hans Christian Anderson's "The Emperor's New Clothes."

Adding to the books’ allure is the fact they come with musical accompaniment and narration from notable celebrities like Danny Glover and Robin Williams.

Whether or not this temporary price cut helps Amazon gain any educational market share is yet to be seen, and experts don’t expect it to. However, it at least provides administrators with a reason to consider the Fire before placing their Apple order.

More

Politics in Education -Tips From...

I have spent over 50 years working in education from K-university. I have seen my fair share of educational politics on all levels. As school administrators you need to be aware of this in order to stay out of the political battles that you might arise. I have been a K-12 educator in 9 school districts in 5 states. I have also been a school board member and a university professor that worked with educational leaders. I have seen excellent school boards and superintendents and not so good...

Before the Interview

Improving your interviewing skills is important as a teacher or administrator. Here are some tips that might help you land that job!

  • Obviously, find out the correct time, place, day and whether the interview will be in person or on a zoom meeting prior to the interview. It can be embarrassing and a job killer if everyone is not on the same page. Our school is located in Egypt so most of our interviews are on zoom with time differences of 6-9 hours in the States with different...

Tips for Interviewing: Questions to Ask

Good interviewers have developed critical attributes of effective interview questions and questioning techniques. Interviewing is one of the most important ways to see if your candidate is a "good fit" for your school. Interviews can be both in person and virtually but the components of interviewing are very similar.  I currently work in an American international school in Cairo where we try to hire as many Americans as we can for all faculty and administrative positions. The great majority...

Dealing With a Conflict

Conflict between and among people is a fact of school life. Something that can be unpleasant at best but you will have to deal with conflict on an almost daily basis.

As the educational leader, constituents may want to talk to you about a conflict or problem they have with someone or a situation. Frequently, they just want to talk to someone about the problem and do not want you to do anything about it. They just want to talk about the conflict and may solicit your advice. You have...

A Most Unusual Parade! A Parade of...

A most unusual parade in Cairo, Egypt, happened on Saturday, to honor 22 very important mummies(18 kings and 4 queens), including Ramses 2 and Queen Hatshepsut ( first female ruler of ancient Egypt).

The royal mummies, dating back more than 3000 years in age, made their way through the streets, at sunset, each in specially made golden colored carriages, with their names spelled out in Arabic , English and...

Tips for the Prospective Teacher

In the US we are going to need more and more teachers as the supply is running out. Statistically about half of the teachers leave the field after only five years. Unfortunately, states are encouraging more experienced teachers to leave in order to save money. I was a chair of an education department at a college for six years and we saw at our school and many other education departments that we are not getting the number of students we once did.

In Florida, like numerous states,...

Empowered School-Wide Professional...

The best principal preparation is practical experience. There is a national need for good and experienced principals. There are several ways to do this: through graduate courses, serving as an assistant principal, and a district mentoring program.

At our school we wanted to do something a little different that would benefit our assistant principals as well as the school district with well prepared principals.The benefits of this school design was we grew our own educational leaders...

So You Want To Be The Principal

Many assistant principals (AP) aspire to the principalship, but some simple strategies can make those aspirations become reality.

The assistant principal job is complex, demanding and often underappreciated. Its complexity is true regardless of whether it is in an elementary, middle or high school; in a rural, suburban, or urban location; in a large, medium, or small school; or the only assistant principal or one of several.

School district leaders as well as parents,...

Pages