Apple 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.

“Is it possible to study martial arts every day and know how to play the piano by adapting the data and skills we learned in martial arts to the piano? Or what about adapting the skills learned from ballet to cooking? The answer is yes we can.” — Opher Brayer
We’ve seen the big data. The future of work is all about imagination, given that...
Author's Note: This is the final installment of a three-part series on my experiences working as a gifted education resource teacher. I included the references used in all three blogs at the end of this blog.
Part 3: Discussion
During this autoethnography, I explored my progression from a frustrated resource teacher, who second-guessed my decision to accept the position, to a functioning co-teacher, who, in at least in some cases, able to influence my colleagues to better...

“The more we standardize school, the less our kids have the time and support to develop the ability to learn how to learn, think independently, and create initiatives that make their world better.” – Ted Dintersmith
“Our kids will be adults in a world where automated solutions absorb all routine...
In this installment, I write about the themes I discovered in my story of working as a gifted education resource teacher. Essentially, I experienced much frustration until I learned to first collaborate with classroom teachers, until I gained their trust and respect, only then could I begin to share my expertise. Interspersed in the writing are journal reflections and e-mails, which convey my thoughts and emotions at the time of the experience.
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Note: This article first appeared in The Qualitative Report. This is the first installment of a series on working as a resource teacher of gifted education. I am sharing a modified-version of this article in pieces because I think it sheds might light on the challenges that teachers face collaborating together—when one “has” their own classroom and the other visits the classroom to work with students. Both resource teachers and classroom teachers can learn from each other, for the benefit...