The Guardian has a report on ways teachers can use smartphones to improve the educational process. Apps such as Classdroid allow teachers to photograph, grade, and blog homework assignments quickly and easily. There are also anti-bullying apps, quiz and testing apps, and so forth. (It doesn’t mention e-books save for a way to keep Wikipedia on a smartphone, but they could be just as useful in that context.) The article doesn’t say much about student use of cell phones, which could have even greater implications for education and information access—assuming schools can come up with ways to encourage desirable...

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The Apple iPad will not kill the Kindle. In this installment of my Kindle shakedown series, I contend that the ideal ereader should not become a multipurpose device like the forthcoming iPad, or the HP Slate, or whatever comes next. It should instead become a fully dual-purpose device, with two screens dedicated for the two purposes of reading and writing. Some say the multipurpose iPad will kill the single-purpose Kindle. I disagree. This year I have discovered the joy of single-purpose devices. Most computers are multipurpose devices, designed to do everything but not always in the best way. I easily prefer...

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