“Give it a shot,” said Michael Koenig, Darden’s director of MBA programs, to a packed room of new MBA students. They are the first students to receive the new Kindle DX as part of a pilot program Amazon is sponsoring.
Back in May, Amazon announced its plans to begin a pilot program in five colleges and universities and Darden was the first and sole business school chosen. One more business school was added later.
|
The Kindle DX is a wireless reading device that was given to 62 Darden students to try out for two semesters. At the end of the pilot program, they can chose whether they want to buy it for $200. |
The Kindle DX, a slim, wireless reading device, has a 10’’ screen and can be flipped sideways and upside down, much like the iPhone, for better handling. It also has search and highlighting features.
For Melvyn Han, having the chance to try the Kindle DX was “fantastic.” “I am incredibly excited to try it and see where it goes,” he says. Han said that because the new generations are “always wired,” learning to study on the Kindle DX may not be a stretch. “I use my iPhone everywhere I go,” he says. “It’s great to be able to learn new skills.”
For others, the new way of learning may take some getting used to.
There is, however, another dimension to Han’s excitement.
“I am environmentally conscious, and with the Kindle we don’t have to use all that paper,” he says. Koenig, who has been at the forefront of the partnership with Amazon since the beginning, says that sustainability is a major factor that played into the decision to be part of the program. Unlike the other schools who may be using only a couple of textbooks the entire semester, says Koenig, “our students will have 80 or 90 separate documents, most of which are business cases, and that’s not even all the readings they have for the first semester.” In all, Koenig says, the students will have to read more than 300 cases. And that’s a big saving in paper costs.
The pilot program will end in May of next year and after that, students have a choice. “We didn’t feel it was appropriate at the end of the one-year assessment to give it to them in lieu of their other colleagues,” says Koenig. The students will be able to purchase the Kindle DX they have worked with for $200.
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.