Kindle Fire as a Student 1:1 device revised

Two and a half months can be a long time. In my last post I reviewed the Kindle Fire and finished the review by stating that--as much as I loved the device for personal use and as a tool for administrators--I couldn't recommend it for student use in the classroom because of management issues.

That's no longer the case.

Two big developments have changed my opinion. The first was a late December update to the Kindle that allows the user (read "the teacher") to password protect and turn off the WiFi. This feature would allow the teacher to prevent students from downloading and purchasing Amazon content from the Amazon.com website, which was the biggest issue I had with the original setup of the Kindle Fire.

If that was the ONLY development, though, I still wouldn't recommend the Fire. After all, turning off the WiFi doesn't just prevent the Amazon store from working. It also prevents the web broswer from working, and I assume that most teachers would WANT students to utilize the web browser for research. So this Amazon update effectively cripples the machine in the process of fixing the problem of unintentional downloads.



View of Filtering setup page

 The other big development is the release of an Internet filtering and device management app called Mobicip. This app already exists on the iPhone and costs $4.99. The Android version (The Kindle Fire is a modified Android application) is in beta mode and currently free. And it's fantastic! The program has a built in browser, and the user (read "teacher") can turn on Internet filtering for the browser, and the filtering can be set to one of three levels: elementary, middle school, or high school. Unless you upgrade to a paid version, the settings aren't modifiable--that is, you can't get granular and, say, allow a specific site that the "high school" level is blocking, but I found the filtering was pretty satisfactory. The high school level allows users to all but the most inappropriate sites (pornography, illicit drug use, etc.) without too many false positives, and the elementary level is pretty darned restrictive, but still lets students into most elementary-level appropriate material.

Of course, it doesn't do much good to have an Internet filtered web browser if a student can just open the standard Kindle Fire browser and get around the filtering, so the app also includes the ability to block specific apps from opening, including the web browser. By opening the Mobicip program and going to "Appblocker" the teacher--after putting in a security password--will be presented with a list of all of the applications installed on the Kindle Fire. The teacher can click on specific apps and select to "block" them. In this way, the teacher can block the standard browser from opening and force students to use the Mobicip browser.

But that's not all. The Appblocker feature allows teachers to block ANY app. So the teacher can block the Bookstore or Amazon Video or Amazon Newsstand and prevent students from downloading and purchasing unapproved products. And blocking the apps doesn't cripple the Kindle Fire. The apps will still work after the security password is put in. When a user (read "the student") attempts to open a blocked program, this will pop up:



The teacher can type in the security password to give the student access to the program.
So these two developments (coupled with the rumor that the next major update to the Kindle Fire interface will allow teachers to turn off the One Click purchasing feature, which is the root of this problem anyway) allow me to now recommend the Kindle Fire for teachers who think this device is a good instructional fit.

Mobicip isn't an official Kindle Fire app. That is, you won't find it in the Amazon App store. And you can't download it at all until you go into your Kindle Fire's settings and check the box that allows installations from unknown sources. Once you've done that, though, you can install the program using the link below.

If you're interested in installing the app, you can get more information and even download the app here.