Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Lulu Books

I have just had my first experiences of Lulu.com. This is like Amazon.com meets Blogger meets vanity publishing. Anyone can write and edit their own book and offer it up for sale.

Texts can be either downloaded or ordered in Paperback format. I seem to have exhausted searches for unique and original ICT books @ Amazon, so I was keen to find something relevant.

I bought two books and found one which I had read some time ago:

The first was Wesbites for Teachers by Jim Merret, which works out at around £5.60. to download and a bit more to have it sent to you as a book. This is a vast collection of links under everything from IWB resources to sites for lesson plans and worksheets. As a download it could be quite handy as one could copy and paste links. But in this age of tagging websites, blogs and Twitter, where we are used to the community recommending a link and why, this book disappoints. To warrant the money spent I'd at least want a star rating or a brief description of what each site does and is about, otherwise I'll just use Google. Sorry Jim this get no star rating from me.

A more in depth, humorous and very accurate book is Terry Freedman's 'Go on Bore them'. This slim tongue in cheek essay outline how to ensure the ICT lesson is limited, dull and uninspiring. It painted a vivid picture of all that is irritating about poor ICT lessons. It is written by someone who has watched many and probably also reflected on his own teaching too!

I actually read this a couple of years ago and I have gone back to it since as it still sounds fresh and cuts across both primary and secondary.

Finally a book that plopped through my letterbox this week from very far away.
Simple Smart Skills by Mike Palecek Volume 2 . This is basically a very detailed but concise and clearly diagrammed book on Notebook 10. I had been looking for a readable text on SMART for a while and the much rumoured SMART Board for Dummies seems to be missing from the listings of Amazon or Waterstsones. I have been pleasantly surprised by this book and even after months of using Notebook 10, I have picked up some small tips and tools I'd missed.

Its also handy enough for a teacher to stick in their bag or on a shelf.

Interestingly volume 1 is tool by tool account of the Lesson Activity Toolkit and pupil engagment with the SMART BOARD.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the kind comments, Anthony. I'm glad you like it, and I am also pleased that you think it's still relevant despite its being a couple of years old. That's sad really though, isn't it?

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