Getting Ready: Summer of the Nook

What you see below took place between late July (when I walked out of Barnes and Nobel with 3 bags of Nooks--don't worry, I had a purchase order!) to September 1, 2011. At times the process frustrated my husband--because I bent his ears on my frustrations--but now that's all dissolved into excitement as I see the result: A well-organized, registered, and catalogued little row of Nooks waiting for my students. I envision the day I reveal the cart of Nooks to my classroom, the room will fill with a beckoning glow and a powerful operatic note. These Nooks, they are my children.

All right, enough drama. The following steps assume you have successfully purchased your Nooks. I would also highly recommend buying vinyl covers for them as well.

1. Create an email account for each Nook. Record address, password, etc in secure location.

2. Create a Barnes and Noble account for each Nook and use one of your email accounts for the account.

• Each Barnes and Noble account needs a unique email an password
• Each account must also be associated to a credit card. I believe that once the account is established that the credit card information may be deleted, and gift cards may be purchased to serve as a payment source. I have not tested this theory, however, and would love to hear any other payment procedures teachers have set up.
• Please note that you may be able to assign 6 Nooks to one Barnes and Noble account. If so, this would reduce your account set-up time and e-text cost by over 80%. If B&N recognizes you as an institution, however, you would need to set up an account for each Nook.

3. Label your Nooks. This is what I did:

• Write number and school name on front of Nook and Nook cover
• Create a library bar code label for each Nook and put on back of Nook. Since the Nook will be in a cover, the label shouldn’t come off. This will help keep inventory of your Nooks, who has the Nook checked out, etc.
• For each Nook, label each power cord with its corresponding number

4.  Keep a spreadsheet that includes the following information for each Nook:

• Nook Number (1, 2, 3, etc)
• Nook Serial Number
• Email associated to this Nook
• Password to this email
• Password to the B&N account associated to this Nook

5. Fully charge your Nooks.

6. Register your Nooks. You need to do this from each Nook. Just follow the instructions on the Nook. You will need access to a wifi network and your B&N account information.

7. Purchase your desired titles. You can do this from your Barnes & Noble accounts. This is especially recommend if you have more than one Nook assigned to an account, and you want all those Nooks to have the same titles. This is the case for my situation. Once you have purchased the titles through the online accounts, students will see these titles as options to download. They can do so without the use of a password since you've already purchased them.

8. Be sure to change settings so a password is required for making purchases. This essential information for anyone who needs to purchase e-books for the Nooks.

9. Set procedures for student use. Since my students are taking them home like regular textbooks, I followed the next steps:

• Send home information regarding the pilot program and permission slips in mid August for parents to sign.
• Because I only have enough Nooks to pilot with one section, I chose the class based on feedback from parents.
• Adjust student schedules so all students in one class are using Nooks.