The introduction brought out some common challenges in using computers. One was that administration sometimes thinks of them as tools for business or mathematics only. I feel that may have been the attitude 6-7 years ago, but now any progressive principal seems the use for all content. My principal is certainly supportive.
The other problem that W. Wresch mentions is getting the computers reserved and the students knowing how to use the program and computers. Again I think the students are catching up and in many cases ahead of the teacher. Reserving computers is the problem I have.
The book was organized into 30 activities that teachers had submitted. Each entry is identified with the level of students and the teacher's experience with computers. The activities were organized into little and moderate computer skills. It was easy to look at each activity to see if it might be for my level of students, and to see what the objectives of the plan are.
The level of the students was helpful but I still looked at activities that I found interesting and thought about how I might modify them. There were several interesting ideas.
+One I would like to try is poetry writing with graphics. +Another interesting idea was making a parenting handbook. The assignment included a fancy cover, a dedication page, do's and don'ts list for parents, a sketch of the "ideal parent", a sketch of the "real parent", description of a childhood memory, description of a fictional child or children (the kind of child you will have).
+Another idea I noted from this book was the instructions for Debate, Continuous Story, and Mystery Sentence which were all interaction activities with someone else.
+One more idea was for a "Song of Myself" classroom poem. This involved the study of Whitman's "Song of Myself". Then students move from one computer to the next responding to different prompts on the screens. These responses are peer revised, edited, and then published as one class poem. I like the whole class as one idea.
+page 88 There is a Quick Reference Guide for Critical-Thinking Skills.
+One more idea that I want to use is an autobiographical newspaper. I would like to do a newspaper with my classes, I think. This would be a good way to introduce them to the process. Then perhaps we will want to go on and produce a newspaper.
This book gave me some ideas for real, do-able activities to build into my curriculum.
There were a variety of activities for a middle, high school, and early college classes. It was easy to evaluate which activities one might want to read about. This would interest any teacher I think.