Customer Reviews

Teaching Computers in Pre-K through 8th Grade: One New Teacher's Voyage in Education

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For such a recent book (published in 2007), the advice is archaic. It does not include lessons in using the computer to its fullest potential. The writing is from personal experience and ignores most of the research done on best practices in using educational technology that has been published in the past 3 decades.

The author has written a few short stories and an example of one of his lessons for PreK to 2nd grade is having the students copy a story as a typing exercise. Hello! What are Pre-K and K kids learning from typing paragraphs when they are just beginning to read? Why not start by teaching the home row? If I was a student in Mamone's classroom I think I would hate writing by the end of it. Why not get to the students to brain storm and come up with their own stories instead of typing the teacher's?

Some helpful parts of this book were the Excel section, where students can easily practice how to take an average, for example. Most of the assignments in this book are things that can be done without a computer. . . . for example, simple math, writing assignments (which can be done on paper).

I agree that we live in an increasingly technological society, but sometimes computers can be more of a hindrance than a help. This may be because Mr. Mamone comes from a computer-field background and not a teaching background.