The teacher or facilitator places the text and images throughout the room evenly to avoid congestion in one area. They can be placed on walls on their own or attached to chart paper for participants to write on.
When the images are ready, participants are instructed to either write comments on a post-it note and place it next to the image/text, or write on a piece of chart paper under the image. A question can be posed at the beginning of the gallery walk to focus participants on a specific aspect of the content. For example, “As you are walking around, think about where you see the impact of go-go in DC.” Participants are asked to walk around the space as though they were at an art gallery. There is no talking during the gallery walk. This gives participants a chance to reflect silently. Give participants 10-15 minutes to write down their thoughts. Allow more time if necessary.
The teacher or facilitator places the text and images throughout the room evenly to avoid congestion in one area. They can be placed on walls on their own or attached to chart paper for participants to write on.
This is an introductory lesson to acquaint students with key people and issues in a unit of study on go-go in the DC metro area. It serves as a pre-reading activity for books and articles on go-go.
Following the lessons, it is our hope that students will want to learn more and generate their own list of questions for further study. The lesson format is a “mixer” or “meet and greet” where students take on the role of a key person, place, institution, or object. In their role, they try to find answers to a designated list of questions by interviewing their peers, who are also in role. They begin with informational questions and then regroup for questions that require critical thinking and analysis, such as:
- What role does go-go play in understanding gentrification?
- Why did go-go emerge in DC and why is DC one of the few cities in the U.S. to have its own music form?
Public historian Marya McQuirter wrote the bios. She provided this description of the multiples goals she had for them:
"First, I wanted to use the bios as a way to tell smaller stories about go-go that would add up to a big story (or bigger stories) or history about go-go. Second, I wanted to show that the history of go-go is not simple, it is complex and that it involves musicians, singers, educators, politicians, history, money, property owners, a desire to dance, etc. Third, I wanted to place go-go within a history of music. I wanted to give weight to the idea that go-go is a true musical form. And to emphasize its musicality, its use of a wide range of instruments (particularly in the first decades) and that go-go musicians also played, enjoyed, influenced and were influenced by other music genres. Finally, I hoped to provide a context for teachers and students to appreciate how go-go is such a beloved music and culture in the city and to create a space to think critically about its past, present and future."
For classes where some or all the students are not familiar with the go-go beat, we recommend beginning by introducing students to some audio clips. For all classes, we recommend playing go-go music during the mixer activity. Go-go cannot be understood on paper alone.
Materials and Preparation
- Music clips: Have clips of these two songs cued up and ready to play: “Bustin' Loose, “Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers & “Welcome to DC,” Mambo Sauce
- Name tags
- Handout #1: Brief Bios.” There are 38 biographies in this handout. Print the handout and cut the paper into individual strips, with each strip displaying one biography. Each student or workshop participant and the instructor should receive one bio each. If there are more bios than participants, you can either give two bios to a few participants or reduce the number of bios distributed. If you reduce the number of bios, reduce them in multiples of six and delete the respective names from Handout No. 2.
- Handout #2: Questionnaires: What’s My Name? What’s My Story? There are six (2A-2F) versions of this questionnaire to ensure students receive different questions. Print all six versions and make enough copies to cover the total number of students who will participate in the activity. Each student will receive one of the six versions of the handout.
- Do a quick check-in with questions such as:
- Who's heard of go-go? (If quite a few have, ask what bands/songs they can name or that they like.)
- Who's seen a live go-go performance?
- Whose parents/grandparents listen(ed) to go-go?
- Explain that go-go has a multi-generational history in DC, so there are more people and places than the ones they named and luckily today you will get a chance to “meet” them.
- If one or more students have not heard go-go, play two music clips: “Bustin' Loose” by Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers and “Welcome to DC” by Mambo Sauce. Ask students: What do you hear? What are the similarities? What are the differences?
Meet and Greet
- Distribute one bio, questionnaire, and name tag to each student. Explain that for the rest of the class, they will take on the identity of the person, place, or thing on the bio they received. Point out that these biographies are simply brief introductions; the full stories could fill entire books.
- Ask them to take a few minutes to read their bio. Then have them respond to the first two questions on the top section of the questionnaire, and to let you know if they have any questions. The two questions are:
- What is your name?
- What is one thing of significance about your own identity?
- Have them put their role play name on their name tag and put it on.
- Explain to students that they have the rare opportunity to attend a conference on go-go. In order to make the most of their time at this conference, they have a brief questionnaire to complete. This questionnaire will help them meet and learn about others at the conference. As they participate in the conference, they should stay in role, responding to questions from other participants, and in turn ask them questions. Each student should try to “meet” the people or places on their questionnaire that can help them answer their questions. Their conversations with each other should reveal the necessary clues for the student to figure out the names and fill in the blanks.
- Launch the activity. At the beginning, you may need to remind students to stay in role. (If you have not done a mixer like this with your students before, you could model some interactions so they get the idea that they should meet and talk with people to try to find the answers to their questions.)
- Once you have determined that most students have had enough time to complete their questionnaire, have everyone return to their seats.
- Ask for a couple of volunteers to share what they found to be most surprising and/or interesting during the activity.
Deepening Our Understanding of Go-Go
- Explain that now the conference participants have been asked by the media to respond to some challenging questions. You can group participants so that they have the background needed to grapple with both questions. Group them according to what works best in your class. There is not a definitive answer to either question, so the challenge is to develop an informed response based on the knowledge and experience of the roles represented in each group.
- What role does go-go play in understanding gentrification? (Bios 2, 7, 13, 35, 37)
- Why did go-go emerge in DC and why is DC one of the few cities in the U.S. to have its own music form? (Bios 2, 5, 6, 8, 15, 19. 21, 33, 37, 38)
- This is the conclusion of the activity. There are many possible next steps. For example, students can
- Conduct research on the person, place, or thing they represented in the activity. They can share what they learned in the form of an essay, bulletin board display, a children's book, Wikipedia entry, radio theater, or iMovie.
- Draft a description of go-go for the DC history textbook. If they were given one page in the book, what should it say?
- Teach others in their school or community about the history and culture of go-go.
Bios and questions developed by Marya McQuirter. Lesson developed by Deborah Menkart based on a “meet and greet” format used in many pre-reading lessons.
On July 9, 2011, the D.C. community convened for a beat, the Go-Go beat. The Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum hosted Evolution of the Go-Go Beat in Washington, D.C., the second program in a series devoted to Washington, D.C.’s homegrown genre of music. Go-Go music, the history of which has been carefully chronicled in The Beat! Go-Go Music from Washington, D.C., has West African roots and is recognized for its infectious heartbeat-based rhythm courtesy of its signature instruments, the congo, cowbell, and drum.
Kip Lornell and Charles Stephenson, Jr., co-authors of The Beat!, invited the D.C. community-at-large to listen to talks from Go-Go artists.
Sweet Cherie, Howard University Graduate and keyboard player of the all-female Go-Go band Be’la Dona, spoke highly of the Go-Go community describing it as “family.” Having just returned on a red-eye flight from a performance with the Godfather of Go-Go, Chuck Brown, in North Carolina, she warmly presented several audio recordings evidencing Go-Go’s past and continued employ in other musical genres like R&B, Pop, and Gospel. The audience’s response ranged from toe-tapping to nostalgic grins as Sweet Cherie played excerpts of Grace Jones’ Slave to the Rhythm, Jill Scott’s It’s Love, Beyonce’s Crazy in Love, Kirk Franklin’s Before I Die, Karen Clark Sheard’s Prayed Up, Cee Lo’s I’ll Be Around, Kelly Rowland’s Bump Like This…the list goes on like the beat.
Gregory “Sugar Bear” Elliot, lead talker and bass player of Experience Unlimited (E.U.), whose ’80s hit, “Da Butt” featured in Spike Lee’s School Daze and gave Go-Go music one of its first national platforms, detailed the group’s quick rise from playing in small local Go-Go venues to performing in 20,000-person capacity stadiums. He also expressed disappointment with the school system’s removal of music programs from public education claiming “there may be many Miles Davises among us, but we’d never know it” for the lack of access to standard musical training.
Similar to the sun’s unrelenting blaze on this hot D.C. afternoon, Faycez U Know gave a smoking live performance on the grassy area of the Anacostia Community Museum’s grounds as approximately 20 teachers stayed indoors to attend to the business of developing a Go-Go curriculum. The goal of the meeting, led by Teaching for Change, was to build a collaborative community of educators who will develop, field test, and promote lessons centered on Go-Go.
Teachers separated into groups of three to brainstorm interactive and effective ways to address the five core areas of knowledge based on Go-Go music and using The Beat! Go-Go Music from Washington, D.C. as a primary textual source. As the teachers regrouped, they shared many well-constructed ideas inspired by the homegrown sound. Three teachers (Michele Bollinger from Wilson Senior High School, Monét Cooper from Capital City Public Charter School, and Michael Bolds from Cesar Chavez Public Charter School for Public Policy) talked about engaging students in a long-term multi-media project in which the students would create documentaries to include original photos, interviews, and primary documents. Felecia Wright from Anacostia High School thought students could use research and critical thinking skills to explore the relationship between Hip-Hop and Go-Go including why one has gained more national attention and the relationship between the musical/cultural forms.
Reginald Dwayne Betts, a creative writing teacher, will entitle his lesson Rhetoric: The Art of an Illusion, exploring incidents of violence and Go-Go’s perceived association with them. Payne Elementary School teacher Mary Johnson is planning a lesson, The Language of Go-Go: Poetry and Figurative Language, Regional Language, Biography, and City Culture. Other ideas that surfaced included developing a business plan to promote a band as well as creating the social media and publicity for the band. Students would also learn some aspects of marketing by creating web pages, flyers and other promotional materials.
Teaching for Change Associate Director, Allyson Criner, ended the gathering by asking teachers to name a student they will have in mind as they develop their ideas into actual lessons plans.
The lessons will be field-tested. Teachers can still get involved by emailing firstname.lastname@example.org
The Beat: Go-Go Music from Washington, DC
by Kip Lornell and Charles Stephenson, Jr.
University Press of Mississippi in 2009.
One of the first books on Go-Go, The Beat set the stage for how we understand Go-Go. The Beat was originally published by Billboard Music in 2001.
In some very fundamental respects, a go-go bears striking parallels to an African American Pentecostal church service. Both events, for example tend to be long, extending for hours with no predetermined endpoint. Nor do they hand out nearly printed programs detailing the event when you enter a Holiness church or as they check your ID when you come through the door at Deno's Club in Northeast. A go-go and a sanctified church service also blur the clear demarcations that separate performers from the audience. ...both a go-go and a Pentecostal church service succeed only when the majority of the people in attendance fully participate and become integrated into the event.
The Washington Post, in particular, generally continues to report only negative stories on go-go. The Washington City Paper sometimes covers go-go events, mainly live performances and the occasional compact disc release. The city's other daily, the Washington Times, doesn't even seen seem to now that go-go exists.
The latest information about D.C.'s go-go scene can be found on the internet....most folks turn to Kato's [ Kato Hammond's] "Take Me Out to the GoGo" website. Most go-go fans, have TMOTTGoGo.com bookmarked.
I am a woman who happens to love and appreciate go-go music. I happen to be a woman involved in music. I also happen to be a woman at the go-go. My being a woman should not be an issue in go-go, but it is. Go-go is a man's world, a man's music, according to men. They may not say it, but they think it for sure. I'm here to dispute that, to debate it and to prove that the men are wrong about the women in go-go....
Percussion, not only the conventional drum and traps set but congas and timbales, remains one of go-go's core elements. Here is where the educational system in the District of Columbia helped to further the cause. In the 1960s the rivalry between the city's high schools really heated up, particularly on the athletic field. In the District of Columbia, marching bands are as much a part of the football field as the team itself. A Darryll Brooks observed, "There used to be a lot of competition between uptown bands and Southeast, like Spingarn and Eastern bands. We were very educated, musically." Go-go benefited from this phenomenon because so many of the students were involved with marching bands....
The role of the D.C. public schools did not cease with the involvement of young men (and they were mostly males) with percussion. The junior and senior high school marching bands at Taft, Woodson, Coolidge, Cardozo, Dunbar, McKinley, and others included horn and reed players...and many of the first generation of go-go bands utilized saxophones and trumpet players (part of the soul and funk legacy).
The high school band experience helped the aspiring musicians in a number of ways. First, it taught them how to read standard musical notation. Secondly, they were placed in a context where they made music in large ensembles that required a great deal of cooperation. Finally, it reinforced the (essentially African American) concept that motion and music are highly compatible.
The public schools' musical instruction received strong reinforcement from the D.C. Department of Recreation, which also played a vital role in educating D.C.'s aspiring musicians. The Department of Recreation also provided music lessons, especially for horn players, and assisted in sending a "Showmobile" with musical groups into the city's neighborhoods.
Go-Go Live: The Musical Life and Death of a Chocolate City
by Natalie Hopkinson
Duke University Press 2012.
Go-Go Live explores the place of go-go within the development of Washington, DC since the 1970s. It is an important reference for teachers who are unfamiliar with go-go and for teachers who are seeking content on how go-go is part of a larger and international history of black music and culture. The book contains photographs and extensive excerpts from oral histories Hopkinson conducted
Indeed, three generations of Washington-area residents had been grooving to go-go ever since the guitarist [Chuck] Brown had created the sound in the mid-1970s, borrowing the Caribbean flavor he had picked up playing for a Washington Top 40 band called Los Latinos. Go-go has been compared to everything from funk to hip-hop and reggae, but it is best described as popular music--party music--that can take many forms. When you hear it, you know it's go-go by the beat: slow-boiling congas, bass drums, timbales, cowbells, and rototoms layered with synthesizers and a horn section. You also know it's go-go because the audience is part of the band. Together the musicians onstage and the people below it create the music live--always live--through a dialogue of sounds, movements, and chants.
...the essence of go-go is the live show....It is live and direct. Simple. True. For lives (and deaths) that are often made invisible in the mainstream media, go-go rituals comfort and reassure the crowd that they exist, that they are part of a community, able to hear news that may not necessarily be black and white.
The violence and mayhem that erupted following King's death set the physical stage for the birth of go-go. The rebellion of 1968 reflected a distinctly consumerist, capitalistic, and hedonistic rage. The go-go scene filled a power vacuum, bringing together a steady crowd of Washingtonians in and around the city's core for fellowship, communion, and the expression of a postriot, post-civil rights movement urban reality. This new musical form helped bring new life to the charred urban core.
Go-go flourished both because of and in spite of the decades of adversity that preceded the riots and intensified after them. Go-go established musical spaces in the ruins of social upheaval: in crumbling historic performance spaces such as the Howard Theater, in hole-in-the-wall nightclubs, such as the Maverick Room; in backyards, community centers, and parks.
Once black and youth cultures possessed regional quirks, textures, and accents that reflected the places of the music's creation. Thanks to the dynamic rise of hip-hop, that is now less frequently the case. Go-go took such a wildly different trajectory to hip-hop that it could be seen as counterdiscourse to this standardization of youth culture. Both art forms have roots in urban youth culture, and their origins are both a byproduct of the urban centers' sociopolitical outlook following the collapse of the industrial economy in the 1970s, which caused middle-class flight and required the emergence of new urban public spheres. This power vacuum led to the rise of underground economies that snatched their own cultural and economic power. In the mid-1970s Bronx, that was hip-hop. In the mid-1970s Washington, D.C., it came in the form of go-go.
Go-go's divergent path allowed it to maintain its function as a uniquely black public sphere. Its fidelity to time-honored cultural scripts such as live call and response, as well as its locally rooted distribution and economic system, makes a statement about how a public sphere should be structured culturally, aesthetically, and economically. Simply put: go-go never sold out. Go-go, with its live, heavily percussive instrumentation and discursive, non-linear narrative forms, remains aesthetically faithful to a long history of uniquely black public spheres. It lacks the polish and sheen of the high-tech production of contemporary hip-hop recordings or other kinds of popular music. There is a grit and texture to the music that accurately reflects, represents, and speaks to the communities of its creation, the communities where it is consumed and from which profits are taken. The content of the recordings are aggressively zoned toward individuals and neighborhoods otherwise ignored by mainstream news media. The lyrical content is not devoid of the negative influences that exist in all communities. However, the individuals both calling and responding to the messages reflect on black life in a way that is not distorted by multinational profit motives or the international gaze.
- Two to four 50 minute periods to read, collect information and organize it
- One to three 50 minute periods to draft a statement and present it.
- Is anything ever completely independent of the influence of others?
- In what ways do we connect with each other?
- Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
- Analyze in detail how an author’s ideas or claims are developed and refined by particular sentences, paragraphs, or larger portions of a text (e.g., a section or chapter).
- Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning.
Students will be able to identify elements from other musical and cultural traditions that have been incorporated into go-go. (Identify elements that influence the creation of something new)
Students will be able to make an argument for which elements adapted by go-go were the most influential and necessary in the development of go-go music.
One page outline for argument that defends student statement around the most important musical influences on gogo this argument should include: a clear position, a statement describing go-go, quotes from the text, references to video or audio clips
Students should be prepared to present their statements in whole class or small group presentation, or formal class discussion.
Before embarking on this lesson students should already know how to identify valid supporting evidence, know the structures used in class for formal discussion, and how to craft a clear a clear position statement.
Lesson Plan - Hook
Have students create comparison charts in which they compare themselves to parents and/or grandparents identifying features both physical and behavioral that they have inherited and then identify those elements that are strictly their own.
Show images of a modern instrument and its predecessors allowing students to identify the elements that were kept and those that are unique to the modern instrument.
(This comparison will allow the teacher to facilitate a conversation, where students are able to notice how particular elements taken from one place can influence the development of something new.)
counterpart, syncopation, antiphony, lineage, vernacular, disenfranchised, predecessor, secular, traits
Teachers will provide students with student friendly definitions of the terms above and then have them provide examples and non-examples of each. As they read students will locate and record sentences in the text where the words are used.
Read Aloud and Modeling
Teacher will provide students with a chart/timeline/or map, that allows them to record the different types of musical traditions influential to the development of go-go, mentioned in the text. Teacher will read the first two paragraphs of “The Roots and Emergence of Go-Go” Pg. 11-12 and model his/her thinking:
She/he will identify the musical tradition, then list the elements of that tradition that can be found in go-go music. The teacher should chart this example so that students may use it as a reference.
The teacher will ask students to read pages 12-15 and identify either a new musical tradition that influenced Go-Go or a particular element within the already identified musical tradition to add to the list already charted.
After a set period of time students will be broken up into groups and assigned a section or sections of the chapter and tasked with looking for musical traditions and the elements in these that were influential in the development of Go-Go, they may also identify similarities in the development of other musical styles.
After students have read their sections they should chart and post their findings and present to the class. Students listening to the presentation should have a format for collecting the information presented by their classmates.
Teacher will then show students clips of the different types of music mentioned in the chapter and students will add to their lists based on the visual and/or audio clips presented.
Video Clips and Audio Clips of Live performances from each of these genres: West African Ju-Ju http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC0Tw4PmarA, R&B, Afro-Cuban/Latino, DC High School Marching Bands, Funk, Hip Hop, Latin, Go-Go
Once students have collected all of their information they will be asked to choose one of the musical traditions that they believe was the most influential in the development of go-go and prepare for discussion by identifying textual evidence as well as evidence from the video and audio selection that will support their claim.
Students will organize this information into an outline and use this outline as a guide for a class discussion (format to be determined by teacher).
This outline and notes from the discussion may then be used to develop on page papers that show students ability to state a claim and support that claim with evidence.


- encouraging wide reading;
- exposing students to high-quality oral language;
- promoting word consciousness;
- providing explicit instruction of specific words; and
- providing modeling and instruction in independent word-learning strategies.
Each of these components contributes to helping students overcome the major obstacles to vocabulary growth.
What to do about the size of the task
We know that the volume of students' reading is strongly related to their vocabulary knowledge.1 Students learn new words by encountering them in text, either through their own reading or by being read to. Increasing the opportunities for such encounters improves students' vocabulary knowledge, which, in turn, improves their ability to read more and more complex text. In short, the single most important thing you can do to improve students' vocabularies is to get them to read more.
- If, over a school year, a fifth-grade student reads for an hour each day, five days a week (in and out of school), at a conservative rate of 150 words per minute, the student will encounter 2,250,000 words in the course of reading.
- If 2% to 5% of the words the student encounters are unknown words, he or she will encounter from 45,000 to 112,500 such words.
- We know that students learn between 5% 10% of previously unknown words from a single reading. This accounts for at least 2,250 new words the student learns from context each year.
The figure 2,250 new words learned a year is based on the lowest points of the estimated ranges. Even this conservative figure suggests that reading is a powerful influence on students' vocabulary growth.
What kinds of reading are necessary to produce such vocabulary growth? Whereas some argue that almost any reading ultimately will have powerful benefits for students,3 others say that if students consistently select texts below their current reading levels, even wide reading will not result in measurable vocabulary growth.4 Nor is reading text that is full of unfamiliar words likely to produce large gains in word knowledge.5
To help students get the most out of reading, you should encourage them to read at a variety of levels — some text simply for enjoyment, which should benefit their fluency if nothing else — and some text that challenges them. You should also help students develop reading strategies that will allow them to read more challenging texts with lower levels of frustration. When students have been taught comprehension strategies, they tend to do more reading.6
Increasing their motivation to read is another critical factor in helping students make the most of wide reading. One powerful motivating factor associated with more reading is a classroom environment that encourages and promotes social interactions related to reading.7 Making available a variety of books and setting aside ample time for reading also motivate increased reading.
As is true for any method of promoting vocabulary growth, wide reading has some limitations. One is that it obviously cannot be effective with very young students who are not yet able to read very much on their own. Another limitation is that, although wide reading may be effective in producing general vocabulary growth, it is not an effective method for teaching the words that students need to master a particular selection or a concept related to a specific content area. Finally, it is important to acknowledge that, as important as it is, wide reading does not produce immediate, magic results; its effects are cumulative, and emerge over time.
You can encourage wide reading in a number of ways. You might, for example, recommend or provide lists of books for students to read outside of class, and make time in class for students to discuss what they have read. You can set aside a time each day for independent reading. And, of course, you can model the value you place on reading as they read, by telling students about the books you are reading.
What to do about the differences between spoken and written English
High Quality Oral Language
As we discussed earlier, both English language learners and English-speaking students may achieve fluency in the language of face-to-face conversation and still have little exposure to or knowledge of the kind of language they encounter in school textbooks. Clearly these students need more exposure to written English, and wide reading is the most effective way of increasing exposure to this kind of language. But what can be done with students who are in the process of learning to read, and who cannot do a great deal of reading on their own? Here is one solution: Increase the quality of the oral language to which students are exposed — let them hear spoken English that incorporates more of the vocabulary and syntax typical of written, and particularly literate English.
A very effective way to expose children to literate vocabulary is to read to them from storybooks, especially when the reading is accompanied with discussion.8 Authors of good children's literature have always found ways to talk "over children's heads" — using big words and other aspects of literate language — without decreasing children's interest or enjoyment. Both younger and older students appear to benefit from read-aloud activities, and older students can learn the meanings of new words as efficiently from hearing stories read to them as they can from reading the stories themselves.9 Making available (either in the classroom or school library) a selection of quality audio books and players that students can use on their own can also be a good way to expose them to a variety of good books and broad language experiences.
Storytelling is yet another way to increase the quality of students' oral language experiences. Even when no text is involved, storytelling still exposes students to richer language than does normal conversation. Pretend play likewise involves rich language use. The quality of preschool children's conversations, and teachers' use of a more sophisticated vocabulary also have been found to affect students' language and literacy development.10
Asked what they could do to use more sophisticated vocabulary without intimidating or confusing their students, a group of teachers responded enthusiastically, "Make it fun!" We definitely agree. Playing with language is an essential component of language development. Word consciousness is the knowledge of and interest in words. Word-conscious students enjoy learning new words and engaging in word play. They know and use many words, and are aware of the subtleties of word meaning and of the power words can have.11
To become word conscious, students first need to develop a feel for how written language is different from everyday conversation. To this end, it is valuable to draw their attention to the distinctive characteristics of written language, even when reading aloud, and to help them learn to read like a writer, and to write with an audience in mind.
Having students copy in their journals phrases or sentences from their reading that are examples of especially effective language use — vivid descriptions, striking metaphors, interesting similes, plays on words-can help make language more alive for them. Students can share their examples with the class, or they can post them in the classroom to serve as inspiration or models for others.
Reading and discussing two versions of the same story — ideally, one with rich language and one with language that is less interesting — can promote word consciousness in younger students.
Word consciousness can be promoted in a way that helps students become aware of differences between Standard English and non-standard varieties, without stigmatizing the latter. Shirley Brice Heath describes classrooms in which students learned to be "language detectives," studying how people speak differently in different groups and in different situations. She believes that this awareness made an important contribution to the students' academic success.12 It may be especially important to make such differences explicit for students less familiar with standard English.
A number of oral and written word games can serve to promote word consciousness, including puns, limericks, Hink-Pinks, crossword puzzles, jokes, riddles, and anagrams.13 Encouraging students to play with words can create an interest in knowing more about them, and thus, can become a strategy for independent word learning.
What to do about the limitations of sources of information about words
Independent Word-Learning Strategies
- the efficient use of the dictionary;
- the use of word parts (prefixes, suffixes, roots, compounds) to unlock a word's meaning; and
- the use of context clues.
Instruction in dictionary use that focuses on having students look up words and use information from their definitions to write sentences does not provide students with the guidance they need to make dictionary use an efficient independent word-learning strategy.
This is not to say, however, that dictionaries are not important aids to word learning. In fact, the more students are exposed to dictionary definitions, the better their word learning.14 The crucial point here is that students receive instruction in how to use what they find in a dictionary entry so that they are able to translate the cryptic and conventionalized content of definitions into usable word knowledge.15 This instruction includes modeling how to look up the meaning of an unknown word, thinking-aloud about the various definitions in an entry, and deciding which is the most appropriate definition for a particular context.16
Teaching students how to use information about word parts can be very valuable in promoting vocabulary growth. Many students, however, are not aware of this strategy. Even students who have learned to break words into parts in their decoding instruction may not understand that they can use this knowledge to figure out word meanings. Teacher modeling helps to make the strategy's value clear to students.17
Using word-part information can be especially helpful in learning certain content-area concepts. (See Teaching Word Meaning as Concepts)
Context clues are clues to the meaning of a word contained in the text that surrounds it. These clues include definitions, examples, and restatements. Teaching students strategies for identifying and using context clues has been suggested as a major instructional technique for vocabulary development.18 A student learns a new word from context by making connections between the word and the text in which it appears. When a new word is first encountered, the student stores in memory some information about how it fits into what is being read. In subsequent encounters with the word, this information is reinforced, and more information about the word's role in particular contexts is added until the word is understood and used appropriately. As in teaching other kinds of strategies, teaching students to use context clues to develop vocabulary is an extended process that involves: modeling the strategy; providing explicit explanations of how, why, and when to use it; providing guided practice; gradually holding students accountable for independently using the strategy; and then providing intermittent reminders to apply it to reading across content areas.
As we noted earlier, learning words from context is a long-term process, one that involves multiple encounters with words. The challenge is to create vocabulary instruction that compresses this process to enable students to learn more words in a shorter period of time.19
What to do about the complexity of word knowledge
Explicit Instruction of Specific Words
- Use both definitional and contextual information about word meanings,
- Involve students actively in word learning, and
- Use discussion to teach the meanings of new words and to provide meaningful information about the words.
Use Definitional and Contextual Information
In the past, vocabulary instruction most often consisted of learning lists of words and definitions (with a test on Friday). We now know that such instruction is of limited value, particularly in improving students' reading comprehension.20 Students need to know how a word functions in various contexts. Therefore, instructional methods that provide students with both definitional and contextual information do improve comprehension, and do so significantly.
- Teach synonyms.
Often a synonym is all students need to understand a new word in context.
- Teach antonyms.
Not all words have antonyms, but thinking about antonyms requires students to identify the crucial aspects of a word. For example, the word chaos implies an abyss, a void, or clutter, but its antonym, order, narrows the focus to the "clutter" part of the word's meaning.
- Rewrite definitions.
As we noted earlier, dictionary definitions can often confuse or mislead students. Asking students to restate a dictionary definition in their own words can be more effective than requiring them to remember the exact wording of the definition.
- Provide example sentences.
A good way to ascertain whether students understand a word's definitions is to have them provide example sentences in which they use the word. They may draw these examples from personal experiences ("Mom's kitchen is chaos.") or from textbooks ("After the great flood of 1937, there was chaos all over the Tennessee Valley.").
- Provide non-examples.
Another way to find out if students truly understand the meaning of a new word is to have them supply words that are not examples of the word's meaning. For example, point out to them that cry is not an example of the word guffaw, then ask them to think of other non-examples of the word (bawl, sniffle, whine, whimper). Coming up with non-examples requires students to think about the critical attributes of a word, much like providing antonyms.
- Discuss the difference between the new word and related words.
A discussion of the word debris, defined as "trash," "garbage," or "waste," might include a discussion of the differences between debris and trash, garbage, and waste. For example, debris might be the result of some sort of accident or disaster, whereas trash might include anything. Garbage generally refers to organic material, such as food leftovers, and waste implies something left over, rather than something resulting from a disaster. Such a thorough discussion encourages students to focus on the meanings of words.
Some activities that provide students with contextual information include:
- Have students create sentences that contain the new word.
Encourage students to create sentences that show a clear understanding of the meaning of the word — not just "I like chaos." More acceptable sentences are those that include the definition, such as, "Chaos is when everything is in disorder." Even more acceptable are sentences that extend the definition, such as, "The scene was complete chaos — desks were turned over, paint was splashed on the floor, and the trash can was upside down." Of course, to write sentences containing a new word, students need examples of how it is used correctly. Definitions, even those that give brief examples, rarely provide enough information to guarantee that students have a real sense of how words are used. One way to scaffold students' use of new words is to have them complete sentence stems containing the word, e.g., "John thought it would pacify the teacher if "21
- Use more than one new word in a sentence.
Asking students to use more than one new word in each sentence they create can force them to look for relations among words.
- Discuss the meaning of the same word in different sentences.
Many words have multiple meanings, which depend on the context in which the words appear. To prevent students from limiting word meanings to one particular context, have them use a new word in several different and varied sentences. For the word chaos, their sentences might include topics such as chaos in classroom behavior, chaos as clutter and mess, chaos in personal relations, and so forth.
- Create a scenario.
Invite students to make up a story in which a new word features prominently. If students are too young for this activity, have them draw a picture story for a new word.
- Create silly questions.
You might have students pair new words and use each pair to make a silly question.22 For the words actuary, hermit, philanthropist, and villain, their questions might include "Can an actuary be a hermit?" "Can an actuary be a philanthropist?" "Can a philanthropist be a hermit?" "Can a philanthropist be a villain?"
Involve Students Actively in Word Learning
Students remember more when they relate new information to known information, transforming it in their own words, generating examples and non-examples, producing antonyms and synonyms, and so forth.
Instruction that works
In one study of exemplary vocabulary instruction, activities were conducted in a five-day cycle. On the first day, the new words were defined, and students discussed the use of each word in context. This discussion took different forms, including discussion of examples and non-examples, pantomimes, and having students say "Yay" if the word was used correctly in a sentence and "Boo" if it was not. On the second day, after a review of the definitions, students might work on log sheets, completing sentences for each word. On the third day, they completed another log sheet, then worked on a timed activity in which pairs of students attempted in the shortest amount of time to match words with their definitions. This activity was repeated on the fourth day. After completion of the second timed activity, students were asked silly questions. On the fifth day, they took a post-test.
These activities varied somewhat with different units. For example, students also completed a "Word Wizard" chart activity each day. A Word Wizard chart is a chart that contains new vocabulary words. These words can be taken from a storybook, from a text, or just be words that are encountered in some way. Every time a child in the class found one of these words in context, the teacher attached an adhesive note with the child's name and the context next to the word. The first child who received 5, 10, or some other number of notes became the Word Wizard. Students were given credit toward becoming a "Word Wizard" by finding examples of each word used outside of class.
This program, or variations of it, significantly improved students' comprehension of texts containing words that were taught. As part of the program, it was revealed that twelve encounters with a word reliably improved comprehension, but four encounters did not. The instructional approach, which involved active processing of each words' meaning, had significantly greater effects than did a definition-only approach on measures of comprehension but not on measures involving the recall of definitions. These findings suggest that vocabulary instruction can improve comprehension, but only if the instruction is rich and extensive, and includes a great many encounters with to-be-learned words.
Use discussion to teach word meanings. Discussion adds an important dimension to vocabulary instruction. Students with little or no knowledge of some new words they encounter in a vocabulary lesson are often able to construct a good idea of a word's meaning from the bits of partial knowledge contributed by their classmates. (When the class as a whole does not know much about a particular word, however, you may have to help. Perhaps supplying some information about the word, such as a quick definition.)
Discussion can clarify misunderstandings of words by making the misunderstandings public. For words that a student knows partially, or knows in one particular context, the give-and-take of discussion can clarify meanings. When misunderstandings are public, the teacher can shape them into the conventional meaning.
Discussion involves students in other ways. As they wait to be called on, students practice covertly, or silently prepare a response. Therefore, even though you call on only one student, many other students anticipate that they will have to come up with an answer. As a result, discussion leads to increased vocabulary learning.23 Without the practiced response, discussion is not likely to be valuable as a learning experience.
Bringing instruction together
This sample lesson illustrates how a teacher can bring together the three components of explicit vocabulary instruction to teach words that are key to understanding the story The Talking Eggs by Robert San Soucil. The words chosen for instruction are backwoods, contrary, dawdled, groping, rubies, and silver.24
For the key word backwoods, read the following sentence from the story: "Then the old woman took her by the hand and led her deep into the backwoods." Ask students to predict what backwoods means. Backwoods is a compound, and, when the information from the word parts is combined with some information from the context, its meaning should be fairly clear. Next, ask students to describe the backwoods briefly.
The key word contrary can be taught the same way, beginning with reading this sentence from the book: "You do as I say and don't be so contrary," and asking students to predict the meaning of the word from context. For this word, have students discuss a definition for the word, such as "disagreeable, raising objections," and encourage them to explain how the definition fits in the context of the sentence. As a follow up, you have them create some sentences that contain contrary. This can lead to a discussion of another, related meaning for contrary, that of "from another point of view," as in the expression "to the contrary."
For dawdled and groping, begin once again by reading sentences in the story that contain the words. Because these words are verbs, however, you might want to pantomime the meaning of each, rather than supply a conventional definition. Then ask students to create sentences that use the words. You might define dawdled with some non-examples, because it is a word that has some clear antonyms, such as hustled, ran, went quickly, and so on.
For rubies and silver, begin by having the class discuss what precious things are. You might illustrate the words by providing pictures that show rubies and things made of silver. Next, work with the class to make a list of precious things, including rubies and silver, as well as gold, diamonds, and so forth.
The words used in the sample lesson are highly dissimilar. They were selected for instruction only because they happen to come from the story they students were reading. The techniques used to teach the words, however, are somewhat similar. For four of the six words, the teacher starts with sentences from the text, then asks students to create additional sentences to extend the meaning of the word beyond the text. Finally, the teacher also includes a definition, either a conventional verbal one or a gestural one, for each of the words.
The instruction this lesson illustrates is relatively minimal, designed to support the reading of the text. More elaborate instruction would shift the focus from the story to the vocabulary words, and might be useful in a classroom with many English language learners, or in any classroom when a greater emphasis on vocabulary is appropriate. More elaborate instruction also might include using additional sentence contexts for each word, a "yea or nay" activity ("Would you dawdle in the backwoods?"), or having students write a scenario, or story that contains these words.
Explicit vocabulary instruction does seem to improve comprehension significantly, at least when the words taught come from the text students are reading. Nevertheless, some cautions are in order. First, teaching vocabulary as students read can, under certain circumstances, distract them from the main ideas of the text. Second, teaching words that are not important to understanding the text leads students to focus on individual word meanings rather than on the overall meaning of what they read. The more effort students expend focusing on word meanings, the less effort they will have available to recall information that is important to comprehension.25 Thus, to be effective, pre-reading vocabulary instruction should focus on words that relate to the major ideas in a text, rather than on words that are interesting or unusual.


Here are the top 30 computers & technology books for teen & young adults. Please click Read Review to read book reviews on Amazon. You can also click Find in Library to check book availability at your local library. If the default library is not correct, please follow Change Local Library to reset it.
: Programming is only for kids who are good at math and science.
The reality: Anyone can learn how to code. Kids with an artistic bent and curious minds can give life to technology that shapes our daily experience.
Don’t believe it? Give this book a try! It will prove to be the best investment for your kids. This book teaches kids how to create animations with code. No big words or scary concepts. Only step-by-step, visual programming laced with digital art, games, and storytelling projects. It is a great art and code mixer. Animation for Kids with Scratch Programming is the perfect first taste that any budding programmer could fall in love with.
This book has three sections:
*Section one starts with simple projects to help students learn basic programming concepts. Those projects give students hands-on learning experience in developing their own games and animations.
*Section two provides students with animation techniques to fuel their creativity and imagination. It provides them tools to create more interesting animations.
*Section three guides students through four complete animations, each with its own storyboard. Kids learn how to manage the complexities of development, the interactions of multiple characters, and the timing of separate events. Many of the animation techniques introduced earlier are utilized to create these projects.
This book highlights the following areas:
Art and Code: Art and code go together like cookies and milk. This book leads with what kids know – art, games, and story-telling. Let them discover their Aha moments while having fun.
Simplicity: No kids study grammar to figure out how to talk. They learn by talking. Why should it be different with programming? No more concept overload and wordy explanations. Start coding from day one.
Projects: The book guides students to create their projects step-by-step. The instant gratification gained in each project reinforces their confidence and love for learning. Use this book in classrooms or for self-learning.
Techniques: This is the 1st book focusing on animation techniques in Scratch. Kids can use it as a great reference book for building their own games and animations.
Storyboard: Actions and scenes have to be planned out just like in filmmaking. This book teaches kids how to use the storyboard to guide their programming logic.
Before Christmas, the first five hundred copies sold will entitle the buyers with a two-hour free webinar class. In this online class, we will walk students through the first chapter. To register for the free webinar, please go to MentorsCloud.com.
Teen & Young Adult > Education & Reference > Science & Technology > Computers > Programming
New Eden Township is more than a dungeon for Fillion Nichols. The medieval biodome community, where Fillion is serving time, is a birthright that torments his life and threatens his future. Sealed inside the experimental Mars colony, there is no escape from anyone, especially the young woman who has haunted his thoughts for nearly six years. To preserve his sanity, he focuses on one goal – decoding the mystery behind the Watson deaths.
It is a mission that shatters his distorted perceptions of reality and helps rebuild the fractured elements of his life.
Meanwhile, to prove his worth to the Daughter of Earth, a young nobleman ventures beyond the walls of the biodome and experiences the Outside world for the first time. But his quest takes an unpredictable turn when he meets Lynden Nichols and Mack Ferguson, who draw him into their world – a community also confined and isolated by society. The Anime Tech Movement’s computer underground is far from the rustic, honorable life the young nobleman knows. Yet, he discovers familiar elements within the high tech subculture that may sustain the home he left behind.
As worlds converge, each young man faces a choice that will affect the survival of an entire community. And to save the generation they fight for, both men must defy the boundaries of everything they know.
Youth cultures collide as The Biodome Chronicles continues in a compelling quest for truth, forging an unforgettable story rich in mystery, betrayal and love.
Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Cyberpunk
Make: Getting Started with 3D Printing is a practical, informative, and inspiring book that guides readers step-by-step through understanding how this new technology will empower them to take full advantage of all it has to offer. The book includes fundamental topics such as a short history of 3D printing, the best hardware and software choices for consumers, hands-on tutorial exercises the reader can practice for free at home, and how to apply 3D printing in the readers’ life and profession. For every maker or would-be maker who is interested, or is confused, or who wants to get started in 3D printing today, this book offers methodical information that can be read, digested, and put into practice immediately!
Arts & Photography > Decorative Arts & Design
This book is a research paper covers everything you need to know about WebRTC and the ecosystem around it to make educated decisions about launching new initiatives using this technology.
Spanning over 100 pages, this book covers in a simple language what WebRTC is, what you can and can’t do with it, how the ecosystem is divided along with many vendor stories of those who adopted WebRTC.
This book is useful if you are:
* An entrepreneur, seeking to start a real-time communication related initiative
* A product manager, trying to understand where WebRTC fits into your planning
* A decision maker, who needs to make sense of the brave new world of WebRTC
The book addresses the following key questions:
* What is WebRTC?
* What can WebRTC do, and what can’t it do?
* In which browsers and environments can WebRTC be used?
* What types of vendors are adopting WebRTC and how?
* In which markets is WebRTC used and with what kinds of business models?
The book is free of charge curtesy of Kandy by Genband who are sponsoring it.
Business & Money > Industries > Computers & Technology
A LitPick.com Top Choice award winner!
Adam Locke’s latest stunt finally gets him expelled from the ninth grade and shipped off to a stuffy private school. When it turns out to be an undercover organization in need of fresh operatives, he and his new classmate Emma begin their clandestine training. Intrigue, danger, and adventure follow the pair around the world as they learn how to use the gadgets, technology, and tactics at their disposal. During their country-hopping education, they uncover a grave threat to their new way of life and the organization itself. Can a pair of teenagers contend with an international criminal intent on revenge?
Check out book 2 of the Adam Undercover series, ‘The Consortium Directive’ coming Fall 2016.
Children’s Books > Growing Up & Facts of Life > Friendship, Social Skills & School Life > Boys & Men
“It’s not that our students aren’t reading and writing, but that where and what they are reading and writing is off the school radar. We can build a bridge between the literate lives of our students outside of school and the literacies we want to teach them.”
–Dana J. Wilber
The power of Dana Wilber’s insight is in its simplicity. Students are texting, networking, and blogging- i.e., writing and reading- all the time, everywhere, just maybe in places we aren’t necessarily paying attention to. Build on their authentic interest and motivation using the technologies they are already committed to and you’ve won half the battle. You won’t believe how engaged they are; they won’t believe they’re learning for school.
In iWrite, Dana shows you how to guide students through the complexity of new literacies, including:
- how to discern between media
- how to account for audience and voice
- how to choose appropriate genre
- and how to harness what they already know to be more successful in school.
Dana deftly elucidates the lives of Millennials, those students growing up around the turn of the 21stcentury, and the technologies embedded into their everyday reading and writing. She shows us how three accessible tools-wikis, blogs, and digital storytelling -can be used to scaffold learning for our students. And she demonstrates how they can help us address 10 key issues in the literacies of today’s students:
- Meaning and identity
- Interest and inquiry
- Cognitive development
Let iWrite show you how to capture students’ daily literacy practices and develop them for the kind of writing we want them to learn.
Born in 1944, Mary Gorden grew up with dreams of becoming an astronaut and a scientist. But during the 1950s and 60s traditional attitudes about women in the workplace still prevailed. Mary’s searing memories of being told girls don’t” in response to her aspirations opens this compelling memoir of her journey through the groundbreaking new world of computer programming and the computer as a business tool.
After she graduated from college in Wisconsin with a degree in mathematics, Mary made her way to Washington, D.C., where she began her first programming job. She then followed her heart to San Francisco in 1969 meeting her husband along the way.
With her natural gifts as a logical problem-solver, Mary excelled in her programming work. Yet she was constantly pressured to leave the technical work she loved and to go into management. It was an unusual problem for a woman to have in the 1970s.
Written in a no-nonsense style, Mary recounts challenging years in management and marriage––eventually discovering that she needed to leave both. She also writes about the outdoors as her passion and escape, of the intense freedom and focus to learn horseback riding and cross-country skiing, of navigating the skies as a licensed pilot, of her world travels and her love of her horses and her dogs.
Over the course of her story business computing evolves from punched cards to the beginning of the internet, and opportunities for women continue to change and grow.
Biographies & Memoirs > Memoirs
Small business owners often begin their businesses with limited funds, focussing on urgent matters and necessities. While we understand that starting lean is critical to long-term success, we also know that there is a lot you can do to get your business growing immediately using the tools that are available so readily today! We are here to point you in the direction of success, by using inexpensive (sometimes, even FREE!) technology that can make a huge difference for your business.
Computers & Technology
More and more eBay sellers are gradually turning their entrepreneurial efforts on the world’s foremost online auction site into serious business enterprises. Whether they see their eBay business as a modest addition to their revenue or a potentially fulltime venture, they need expert advice on how to do it right. Filled with in-depth, easily-understood answers readers can flip to, as-needed, this is a one-of-a-kind resource for any eBay seller.
Business & Money > Industries > Retailing
“Virtual World Design and Creation for Teens” shows teens like you how to develop virtual 3D worlds using the simple, visual programming language, Alice. Virtual worlds can take the form of animated stories, movies, and games. This book will teach you step-by-step how to create virtual worlds, including developing your story, setting up your world, adding and animating characters, incorporating sound, and sharing your world with others. You’ll even discover how to add strategy to your worlds so they can be used as interactive stories or games. Written in clear language using hands-on projects and exercises to teach you each new skill, this book is easy to follow at your own individual pace.
Computers & Technology > Programming > Game Programming
Learn to Make Great Digital Photos for 5 Bucks is a tight, bright, four-color, quick reference manual for anyone who wants to learn to use their digital camera. Written by an intelligent expert of digital photography, the text is integrated with large illustrations (either photographs or software interface shots). Brief tips or warnings at page bottom address any ancillary points not covered in the basic how-to text. There’s nothing else. Readers will quickly learn the fundamentals of using a digital camera: your camera’s basic features, how to shoot in different lighting conditions, tips for different kinds of shots (portrait, landscape, close-up), basic rules all the pros know, and more than 50 tips and secrets that help get the perfect shot, or maybe just save your day. You’ll also learn what to do with your images after you’ve imported them into your computer: managing your photo files, editing and cropping, printing, and emailing them to friends and family. This book isn’t designed to be a complete reference, but an irresistible impulse buy for people who don’t normally buy books in this area–or for people who just want to learn the basics.
Arts & Photography > Photography & Video > Digital Photography
Google is not only the search engine of choice for millions of users, it is an immensely powerful tool for savvy businesspeople who know how to use its advanced features. “Go Google” is a comprehensive guide to everything readers need to know about Google’s myriad applications, including Google Apps, Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Google SMS, Google Base, and other services that will help businesses get organized – and get noticed. Complete with information on research tools like Google Local, Google News, and Google Alerts, this is the ultimate guide for businesses of every size.
Business & Money > Marketing & Sales > Marketing > Multilevel
Comencé este libro a los 17 años de edad, pero el camino ya lo había empezado mucho antes, y del camino sé que me falta mucho recorrer.
¿Por qué 30 reglas? Pues un mes tiene en promedio 30 días, y pensé lo bueno que sería tener una regla para pensar por día, y repetirla 12 veces al año. Sé que el camino del éxito es la perseverancia, pero si le sumamos un plan ¡mejor!. Martin Luther King cuando quiso transmitir lo que sentía por en su accionar dijo, “Tengo un sueño”, y esto representa el principal motivo para este libro: ¡Tengamos un sueño!. Primero soñemos donde llegar, luego vendrán los planes y los cambios, primero soñemos.
Hoy en día es muy simple copiar y pegar, entre tanto Big Data con más de 500.000 artículos creados por día a través de diferentes personas de todo el mundo.
En este punto nos vemos desafiados a lograr comprender la información, filtrar la más relevante y poder transformar creando algo de valor para el otro.
Nos es imprescindible derribar un mito que dice que la generación de Nativos Digitales es experta por nacimiento en el uso de las Tecnologías de la Información y la comunicación (TICs). Estudios internacionales dejaron demostrado que esta generación desconocer cómo utilizar la información que los rodea para conectar ideas y generar nuevos contenidos. Las encuestas realizadas por ICILS indicaron que un 89% de los jóvenes confían en que saben cómo obtener información de internet, pero solamente el 2% logro efectivamente pasar una prueba diferenciando el contenido relevante de aquel que era falso.
Podemos remontarnos al pasado y darnos cuenta que la educación desde el Siglo XIX hasta el Siglo XXI es algo que va evolucionando de una forma lenta en comparación con el resto de los avances desarrollados por la humanidad. Es por este motivo que deseo transformarla, y preparar a todas las generaciones, en los cinco continentes para adaptarse a un contexto que cambia continuamente, con un ritmo nunca antes visto.
Es prioritario traer la educación a la actualidad y lograr generar un pensamiento proactivo y anticipatorio en todas las etapas de la vida.
Comprender el comportamiento de una acción, de un sueño, de una compra, es el desafío que les propongo. Los invito a leer este libro y compartir sus opiniones luego.
Soñar, educar, comprender, entender… ¡comencemos!
Business & Money > Small Business & Entrepreneurship > New Business Enterprises
The Comprehensive edition of AutoCAD and Its Applications combines the complete contents of the Basics and Advanced editions to provide flexibility in course design and teaching approaches. This package provides a complete program for teaching introductory and second-tier AutoCAD courses.
Arts & Photography > Architecture > Drafting & Presentation
//WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE/ The Internet…a world without rules, without boundaries. Where you can be anyone you want, whoever you aren’t. And it’s all just a click away…. Nick Annunciato wants to impress his new girlfriend’s father. So when he flies to Key West with his own father, who’s a cookbook author and chef, and his stepsister, Annie, to attend a local food festival, he places an notice on the Internet: “I’m in Key West looking for the obvious contraband.” Nick does get a response. But what he doesn’t realize is that he has unwittingly thrown himself and Annie into a dangerous swirl of murder, mayhem, and Cuban cigars. Who is the dead man missing a hand? Can Nick and Annie find the killer before he cooks up more trouble? Will this adventure be their last? Different people in different places. The one thing they have in common is a new address on the Internet: danger.com. Where all your fears come true.
Teen & Young Adult > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > Mystery & Thriller
Drawing from fourteen years experience, author Leanne Beitel guides teens in touch typing and basic word processing skills specifically for Christian schools and/or home schools. Keyboarding for the Christian School gives clear directions and brief assignments with the following advantages:Biblical references for each unitGives screen shot examples from Microsoft Word XPCompares APA and MLA report stylesUses inspiring sample textsIncludes timings and grading chartUtilizes commonly-used proofreader’s marksText copy is formatted in 12 point Times New Roman font for readabilityKeyboarding for the Christian School is designed for time-constrained classes, skills review, or as a supplement to computer courses. A printable e-book version of this book along with Teacher Tools to create a typing course is available at https://christiankeyboarding.com
Teen & Young Adult > Education & Reference > Science & Technology > Computers
Computers are everywhere, running our lives, handling our social interactions, serving as the backbone of every business.
And yet, how well do we understand them? How much do we know about their rise to ubiquity? We take computers for granted, but there is a fascinating wealth of ideas waiting to be explored, a rich trail of information explaining how we got to where we are now. That trail includes grand dreams, intricate puzzles, mind-stretching concepts and a cast of colourful characters.
Brown Dogs and Barbers is a story about computer science. Join me on a journey through the story of computing, discover just what makes the machines tick, learn why computers work the way they do and meet the cast of characters responsible for it all.
Computers & Technology > Computer Science
Millions rely on computers at work and at home, and email is a convenience that many take for granted. Information technology professionals develop, create, maintain, and operate computer-related technologies. In this book, the careers profiled include: Bioinformation; Computer animator; Computer game designer; Desktop publisher; and more.
Teen & Young Adult > Education & Reference > Reference
When Sanjeev’s sister runs away to join her boyfriend Raj, a crewman on a cruise ship, they get word she’s been killed in a train wreck. Sanjeev goes in search of Raj, and instead finds her sister alive, but bound and gagged aboard ship. He also discovers a multi-million dollar computer chip smuggling operation and calls on Cyber.kdz to help him track down the thieves.
Teen & Young Adult > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > Mystery & Thriller
The Internet gives us information, communication options, shopping opportunities, entertainment, and much more–all at the touch of a fingertip and much of it for free. But in exchange for these benefits, we may be losing a basic right: the right to privacy. By clicking to accept website user agreements, we often allow companies to track our activities online and to share our data with outside groups. In addition, the police and government agencies can also track people online–and this tracking is sometimes done secretly, without user agreements or search warrants. Privacy laws and the US Constitution are supposed to protect privacy in the United States, as are laws and conventions in other parts of the world. But judicial and legal systems have not kept pace with technology. And until laws catch up, users enter a legal gray area when they communicate digitally–an arena in which their most private conversations might not be protected from intrusion. Such intrusion can be dangerous: government agencies can use information obtained via digital spying to harass, arrest, or imprison citizens. Other groups can use private digital data to discriminate in banking, retail, housing, and other businesses. Around the world, critics are sounding the alarm about digital privacy. Many have called for stricter controls on data tracking. What rights do you have when it comes to privacy online? How can you be a smart cyber citizen and protect your personal digital data? These questions are at the heart of the Internet privacy debate.
Teen & Young Adult > Education & Reference > Science & Technology > Computers > Internet
This insightful work combines Jeff Bezos’s life story, beginning in 1964 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with the creation of Amazon, in 1995, and its rise as the largest online retailer in the world. Bezos’s zeal and tirelessness has seen Amazon through the inevitable ups and downs that come with building a start-uptaking it from a garage and turning it into a worldwide powerhouse. Although Bezos has wide-ranging interests and investments today, Amazon remains the cornerstone of his work life, and he is determined to keep his company at the forefront of technological and commercial innovation. The narrative includes captivating sidebars on Bezos’s life and innovations, and fact sheets on his life and the company. A timeline helps readers glean pertinent facts about Bezos and Amazon quickly.
Children’s Books > Computers & Technology > Internet
Bren Mickler has fallen in love at first sight! Bren tries everything to catch her dream date – right down to starting an electronic dating service for her friends. She plugs everyone’s vital stats into a program she pulled off the Web, and the trouble begins.
One disasterous and often hilarious match leads to another, and Bren finds that her attempts to win love actually keep her from finding it.
Just when Bren thinks she’s ruined everything, the timeless message of I Corinthians 13 envelops her heart. And the verses had been there- literally right in front of her face on the TodaysGirls Web site – the whole time! Bren learns the gifts of Godly love and friendship, discovering that “the greatest of these is love.”
Computers & Technology > Computer Science
When P.C. and Mackenzie are invited to join Mac’s dad on a business trip in Monaco, they are thrilled. But their luxurious vacation is cut short when a serial killer thought to be long retired suddenly strikes again…in their hotel!
Computers & Technology > Software > E-mail
Eighteen-year-old Joshua Amandil and his best friend Kyle Frost are two computer science majors starting their sophomore year of college. All is routine until they stumble upon a projector hidden in their apartment which opens a portal to a virtual world created by the ultra-secret Spyrius Technology.
Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction
– High interest/low reading level books for middle- and high-school students
– Attention-grabbing opener to provide immediate visual introduction to each book
– Mock dialogues to present crucial vocabulary terms in context
– Compelling visuals and information to help students build a background in each topic
– Real-life case studies to show scientists’ problem-solving processes
– Portfolio of tools, equipment, forms, and other real materials used by experts in the field
– Science as Inquiry out of the classroom and into the real world
– Forensic science is a hot topic, making these books the ones teens will want to read
– Highlights of key historical moments in each discipline
– Current events tie-ins
– Career emphasis, featuring interviews with scientists in the field
Computers & Technology > Software > E-mail
Adam and Emma are used to being the youngest agents in the Arcanum Trivindico. Remarkable gadgets, vehicles, and advanced training continue to hone their abilities as undercover operatives. When the US government pleads for them to engage an unhackable global crime syndicate, the students are forced to abandon their unusual education. A pair of new classmates and a dangerous assignment bring questioned loyalties and sparks of romance. As they battle their way across an unfamiliar continent, each of them will be pushed to the limit to complete their mission.
Teen & Young Adult > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure
There is a lot of material on Scratch Programming on the Internet, including videos, online courses, Scratch projects, and so on, but, most of it is introductory. There is very little that can take students to the next level, where they can apply their Scratch and CS concepts to exciting and challenging problems. There is also very little material that shows students how to design complex projects, and introduces them to the process of programming.
This book is meant to fill these gaps.
In short, this book is for students who are already familiar with Scratch: its various commands, its user interface, and how it represents a variety of CS concepts such as, variables, conditional statements, looping, and so on. The book does not attempt to teach these concepts, but, it does provide a quick introduction to each concept in the free Supplement to the book.
I call this an “interactive book” because it is something between a traditional book – which is static and passive – and a fully interactive online course. It does look like a book: it has a series of chapters, diagrams, a lot of text, etc. But it also contains links to online Scratch programs, code snippets, references, which the reader is expected to click and explore to fully benefit from the ideas presented.
I have organized the book as a series of independent Scratch projects – each of which describes how to design and build an interesting and challenging Scratch program. Each project progresses in stages – from a simple implementation to increasingly complex versions. You can read these chapters in any order you like, although I have tried to arrange the chapters in an increasing order of challenge.
Programming is a powerful tool that can be applied to virtually any field of human endeavor. I have tried to maintain a good diversity of applications in this book. You will find the following types of projects:
-Simple ball games
Learn the concepts:
As the experts will tell you, concepts are really understood and internalized when you apply them to solve problems. The purpose of this book is to help you apply Scratch and CS concepts to solve interesting and challenging programming problems. Every chapter lists, at the very start, the Scratch and CS concepts that you will apply while building that project.
Learn the design process:
Besides these technical concepts, you will also learn the “divide and conquer” approach of problem-solving. This is a fancy term for the technique of breaking down a bigger problem into many smaller problems and solving them separately one by one.
You will also learn the “iterative design process” for designing programs. This is another fancy name that describes the idea that something complex can be designed in a repeated idea -> implement -> test cycle, such that in each cycle we add a little more complexity.
You will also learn a bit of “project management”. Project management helps you undertake a project, such as creating a complex program, and complete it in a reasonable time, with reasonable effort, and with reasonable quality. It involves things such as planning tasks, tracking their progress, etc.
Audience for the book:
The book is intended for students who are already familiar with Scratch. The level of challenge is tuned for middle- and high-school students, but elementary-school students who have picked up all the concepts in an introductory course might also be able to enjoy the projects presented in this book.
The book would be a great resource for teachers who teach Scratch programming. They could use the projects to teach advanced tricks of programming and to show how complex programs are designed.
Finally, the book is for anyone who wants to get the wonderful taste of the entertaining and creative aspect of Computer Programming.
Computers & Technology > Programming > Game Programming
Book by Corrigan, Jim
Biographies & Memoirs
How to build 4x4x4, 8x8x8 and 8x8x8 color LED cubes with several sample programs to demonstrate them.
Computers & Technology > Hardware & DIY > Peripherals
Madison Finn is back online, and she’s spilling all the details on her new friend, old flame, and very unexpected crush
Madison, Aimee, Fiona, and the gang are ready for a new school year, but Madison knows that nothing is ever what you expect—especially when it comes to matters of the heart. Regardless of how prepared she is, the eighth grade is going to bring a bunch of awkward new experiences and some major surprises, including a new love interest—and a very confusing love triangle!
Perfect for fans of the Dork Diaries, Back Online is the newest novel in the hugely popular From the Files of Madison Finn series.
Teen & Young Adult > Literature & Fiction > Social & Family Issues > Friendship
Best Selling Books for teen & young adults:
Recommended Books for teen & young adults:
Best Selling Computers & Technology Books for:
Recommended Computers & Technology Books for:
Last updated: Monday, December 5, 2016 9:56 AM