What's on your short list of technology books?

Another query via e-mail last week:

Mr. Johnson,
I heard you speak ... a couple of years ago and really enjoyed listening to you. Then today I was asked a question that I just knew you would be able to answer. We are needing to purchase a book or two over the subject of how technology can improve academic achievement. I figured that you probably have a list of books that you could suggest that you could quickly sent to me - at least I hope that is the case. And thank you for your time - and for being such an "up-to-date" and knowlegeable resource.
Melissa

My inadequate response...

Hi Melissa,

I appreciate your confidence and kind words, but I really don't maintain such a list. There are lots of books with lots of ideas - all with very, very little empirical evidence to back up claims of improved student performance/achievement. (One of the problems is there is no consensus on “academic achievement.”)

Some places you might start are reports rather than books. I would recommend reading:

• "Technology in Schools: What the Research Says" by the Metiri Group
• Ensuring the Net Generation Is Net Savvy by George Lorenz and Charles Dziuban for Educause

I would also skim through the book titles at ISTE to see if any look like they suit your needs. ISTE is a credible source of information on educational technology.

I wish I could be more helpful. Sounds like a great question for Blue Skunk blog readers!

All the best,

Doug

OK, astute readers. What would you recommend Melissa put on her short list of books about technology's impact on student achievement? I feel like I am somehow overlooing the obvious.

Top 10 Manly Contemporary Authors

Not every story has explosions and car chases. That's why they have nudity and espionage.
- Barnes and Ambaum, Unshelved, 09-14-08

Fists and Brains: My Top Ten Manly Authors and Their Protagonists That I Read or Re-Read in 2008*

I've mentioned before that my favorite guilty pleasure is reading mystery and adventure novels in which the protagonist is a manly kind of man. Each of the characters listed below can be a violent fellow when the situation calls for violence and usually takes some degree of abuse himself. He is smart and follows an internal moral code. He is our Walter Mitty-ish alter-ego.

Oh, and his author tells a damn fine story.

I've chose only characters who appear in series. The title listed is a book in the series I felt good enough to re-read, but it's not always the first or most recent book . So, in no particular order...

10. Lee Child’s Jack Reacher (One Shot)

9. Stephen Hunter's Earl and Bob Lee Swagger (Pale Horse Coming)

8. James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux (Tin Roof Blowdown)

7. Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch (Trunk Music)

6. Daniel Silva's Gabriel Allon (The Confessor)

5. Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt (Inca Gold)

4. Randy Wayne White's Doc Ford (Twelve Mile Limit)

3. John Burdett's Sonchai Jitpleecheep (Bangkok 8)

2. Matin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko (Havana Bay)

1. John D. McDonald's Travis McGee (The Green Ripper)

And I am always looking for recommendations.

* Paul C at Quoteflections "respectfully" began this meme: Life is One Big Top Ten (2008). He writes:

It's an outgrowth of Time's ultimate Top Ten Everything of 2008. I appeal to my readers and anyone else so inclined to write their own Top Ten list for 2008 on a topic of their choice. You are invited to link to my site , use the title Life is One Big Top Ten (2008) to help with a web search, and tag several people to carry the meme forward. This topic has the potential to be interesting and fun as we close out the year.

I purposely chose this topic hoping to tweak Paul's literary sensitivities. He's somewhat more high brow than I am. But then we are probably both guys who'd you'd rather have at your side in a spelling bee than a gun fight. But then I've never met Paul. Could be he is a hit man who only uses his teaching career as a cover.

I'd enjoy reading a Top Ten list from these interesting bloggers who don't live in the U.S. ...

Lee Cofino, Artichoke, Gladys Baya, Ann Krembs, anyone from the NESA Librarians' Group, Susan Funk..

Of course everyone is welcome to play the Top Ten meme.

Little Brother and Creepy Treehouses

With the passage of the Patriot Act of 2009, all electronic communication devices used in schools will have a Mind Police chip that automatically sends logs to the school’s office of testing and assessment, the vice-principal’s office, and the Department of Homeland Security for data-mining. Of course, all students have discovered how to disable the chips. Turning the Page (E-books and their impact on libraries) School Library Journal, November 2004.

On Tom Hoffman's recommendation. I just finished reading Cory Doctorow's intriguing book Little Brother (free dowload here).  Authored by a former director for the Electronic Freedom Foundation, the book is a cautionary/action/YA novel about a young San Franciso hacker pursued by the Department of Homeland Security after the Bay Bridge suffers a 9/11-type attack. Caught in their sweep, detained and humiliated by their officers, and concerned for a friend who was not released from "Gitmo-by-the-Bay," Marcus uses his hacking and gaming skills to foil the heavy-booted authoritarianism that descends on his city.

I really enjoyed Doctorow's Department of Homeland Security villains. No monstrous Ian Fleming psychos here, but the post-graduation "good" sorority and fraternity Buffys and Kips from Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds. These are the same Young Repblicans sent to rebuild Iraq and run the Department of Justice. Clean-cut patriots who Doctorow has very believably waterboarding Americans, patriotically and without remorse. Very scary indeed.

I also was fascinated by rhe technology Marcus's near-future school uses. His heavily monitored school laptop well fits into the category of a "creepy treehouse" technology - a term I've just recently stumbled across. (Sorry, I forget where.) One of the term's definitions is:

n. Any system or environment that repulses a target user due to it’s closeness to or representation of an oppressive or overbearing institution.

Marcus, of course, simply boots his machine with a monitor-free OS from a flash-drive to avoid unauthorized use detection. He avoids the "gait-recognition" software of his school's video monitors by putting pebbles in his shoes. He and his friends create their own network using GameBoy-like devices running an OS called ParanoidLinux and using unsecured wireless networks around the city. I suspect it will be the adult readers, not teens, that will be amazed by any of these "hacks."

There is no political subtlety about this book. It's an outright condemnation of the fear tactics used by current politicians. Doctorow effectively argues that the terrorists win when we lose our personal Constitutional freedoms. It makes a great companion novel to Anderson's YA novel Feed. In Feed, the teens are controlled by their digital networks; in Little Brother, the teens use the network to fight against control.

And it's fun and fast-paced. Buy it (or download it) for your YA fiction readers. And maybe slip it to any security obsessed tech directors you know.

__________________

I found it interesting that while Little Brother is a Creative Commons download in a host of e-book formats, Amazon does not sell the book for its Kindle. I wonder if that was the author's or Amazon's decision?