Recently, my school received their results from the high stakes testing in our state. While my school maintained the Excellent rating for the fifth year in a row, my school is not meeting the AYP (Average Yearly Progress) reading requirement with our low socioeconomic status students. My school has now begun a school wide reading literacy program where teachers are asked to promote reading literacy within their subject area. Teachers have been encouraged to promote the reading of subject targeted materials in the classroom.
A close friend of mine is the Vocational Agriculture teacher. He has found a book with an agricultural theme and written in a style that would appeal to his Voc Ag students. His plans are to have the students read a chapter every couple of days and then to discuss it as an addition to his normal curriculum.
I would like to ask for some help from our readership. How do you promote or integrate reading literacy into your Computer Science program? What books, magazines, or online materials do you use and how do you use them in the classroom?
Dave Burkhart
CSTA Board of Directors
I’m sure many will have seen the related post on the AP listserv with the following recommendations. There’s something in there for everyone. I give student ceremonial extra credit for writing a short blog comment about a computing-related book and have gotten good results from that: students finding new areas of interest, etc.
Inside the Future: Surviving the Technology Revolution, Henry C. Lucas, Jr.
Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion, Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen, Harry Lewis (This can be downloaded FREE)
Little Brother, Cory Doctorow
Digital Fortress, Dan Brown
Enigma, Robert Harris
Killing Time, Caleb Carr
I, Robot, Isaac Asimov
Prey, Michael Crichton
Rainbows End, Vernor Vinge
G�del, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid; Douglas Hofstadter
Very much a deep heart discussion about computability and AI
The Cuckoo’s Egg;Clifford Stoll
Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage
How To Solve It; George Polya
Problem solving 101…a great book.
The Pragmatic Programmer; Andrew Hunt
A very pivotal book on software development as a craft.
Don’t Make Me Think;Steve Krug
A fantastic book on design theory.
The Art of Intrusion: Stories of Hackers, Intruders and Deceivers by Kevin
D. Mitnick and William Simon
Battle of Wits: Complete Story of Codebraking in WWII by Stephen Budiansky
Beyond A.I.: Creating the Conscience of the Machine by J. Storrs Hall
Code Breakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park by F. H. Hinsley and
Alan Stripp
Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Parks Codebreaking Computers by B. Jack
Copeland
Contact by Carl Sagan
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (very long, over 1000 pages)
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Enigma: The Battle for the Code by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore
Hacker Diaries: Confessions of Teenage Hackers by Dan Verton
The Puzzle Palace: Inside the NSA by James Banford
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
R.U.R. Rossum�s Universal Robots by Karel Capek
The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem
Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century by
P.W. Singer
Dark Hero of the Information Age: In Search of Norbert Wiener The Father of Cybernetics
by Flo Conway
The Computer and the Brain: Second Edition
by John VonNeuman
The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing’s Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine
by Charles Petzold
High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health
by Elizabeth Grossman
The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It
by Jonathan Zittrain
Ethics for the Information Age (4th Edition)
by Michael J. Quinn
Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever
by Terry Grossman
The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
by Ray Kurzweil
The Psychology of the Internet
by Patricia M. Wallace
Technology Matters: Questions to Live With
by David E. Nye
The Inner History of Devices
by Sherry Turkle
Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet
by Sherry Turkle
The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit, Twentieth Anniversary Edition
by Sherry Turkle
Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships
by David N. L. Levy
Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes In The Age Of The Machine
by Donald A. Norman
Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things
by Donald A. Norman
The Invisible Computer
by Donald A. Norman
The Mythical Man-Month (Anniversary Edition)
by F. P. Brooks, Jr.
The Psychology of Computer Programming: Silver Anniversary Edition
by Gerald M. Weinberg
Don’t Make Me Think, Second Edition
by Steve Krug
Rocket Surgery Made Easy
by Steve Krug
Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing
by Jane Margolis
Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing
by Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher
The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management
by Tom DeMarco
Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (Second Edition)
by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister
The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage by Cliff Stoll
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy
The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
The Cartoon Guide to the Computer by Larry Gonick (out of print, but used copies available)
The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-Line Pioneers
Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte
On Intelligence – Jeff Hawkins
Helene,
Thank you so much for your list. I have only taught high school for two years and have only now begun creating a true computer science program, so I hadn’t seen this list in the AP Listserv.
I really appreciate you responding to my request and have already been forwarded four of these books by our librarian.
Dave