Many students will arrive in schools with some version of the NOOK by Barnes & Noble. It has been a popular gift, particularly by grandparents who earnestly want their grandchildren to read. That’s how my daughter got her Nook, although she also later got an iPad to add to her full repertoire of digital devices including her fifth smartphone and a laptop.

A popular conception of the Nook is that it is a great, probably the best, “reader.”

In addition to high definition screens on the tablets, and a “glowlight” for the readers, the NOOK has a great reader app that also works on the other major platforms. This is not necessarily true in the reverse. The NOOK Reading App automatically syncs your last page so you can read on different devices without ever losing your place. This makes it great for schools who may want to provide for kids to sync their smartphones and continue reading. For schools, a single NOOK can run up to six different “profiles” so that it can be personalized for each student when multiple classes are sharing them.

Since the NOOK is a product of Barnes & Noble, there are of course millions of books, magazines, newspapers, Apps, movies, TV shows, and even Google Play. The NOOK tablets come with free Wi-Fi in all Barnes & Noble stores, possibly providing one answer to the issue of the “digital divide” for evening and weekend access to the internet since all Barnes & Noble stores have lounges for hanging out.

The NOOK is also not the proprietary Android operating system that Amazon’s Kindle uses. This is the same Android as many students are carrying around with their smartphones.

Interestingly, Barnes and Noble is the first platform to have somewhat of a “vetting” process, citing that what they count as “educational” apps have to be “more than hand-to-eye coordination” you would find with most games. While their roster is not that large, they have the benefit of the entire Google list of Apps as well.

See the Learning Counsel’s research review of the Amazon, iTunes, Microsoft and Google platforms for available Apps at: thelearningcounsel.com/archives/amazon.

Here is a partial list of the ever-expanding list of apps on the NOOK:

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