Book Reviews

July 1, 2012

Review One...
Digital and Media Literacy - A Plan of Action' by Renee Hobbs

I would not recommend this book. 

This book is simply sad looking. I feel that a book about digital and media literacy should be loud and out there. Kind of like media is. We are constantly surrounded by bright flashing lights of alluring television ads, loud music, and the constant siren call of social networks. This book does not say any of that. It really doesn't say anything. The boring green cover only has the title and author printed on it. It'd be more appealing if it had forms of media literacy printed all over it.

I figured I'd give the inside a chance. I discovered it to be just as dull and boring as the cover! It had the standard table of contents. But when actually flipping through the book I discovered it wasn't broken up into chapters like the table of contents suggested or I assumed. It was one continuous book with sub-headings. I believe that's what they're called. 

There were no pictures, I'm not saying all books should have pictures, but one would think there would be some pictures with the title being containing digital and media literacy. There were no charts or graphs that gave statistics out on how digital and media literacy are becoming more and more of a need in today's technological society. 

I will give the actual text some credit though. I skimmed through the book and just by reading the first sentence of each sub-heading you are able to get a general idea of what digital and media literacy is, even if you had no prior knowledge to it before. An example that I found and liked was…

Sub-heading 'Learning and Teaching: What Works'

"Today educators use a variety of engaging texts, including those from mass media, popular culture, and digital media, to support the development of digital and media literacy competencies across K-12 and higher education." 

I think digital and media literacy is soon going to be become the only way educators can get into the brains of students. I think digital and media literacy is important because we need to teach the tech savvy generation how to be safe and how to use/view it the right way.

In short I didn't think this book did justice to its title. 

Review Two...
'Empowering Students with Technology' by Alan November

I would recommend this book.

This this book screams technology. There are pictures of old advertisements, webcams, and  lights on a highway. It has a very flashy cover and the word empowering is printed in large bold letters. Who wouldn't want to read this?

Flipping through the book I find there is a very detailed table of contents. I find a more detailed table of contents more helpful. If you were just looking for information on a specific topic you could easily find it. 

I think the part that I found most interesting is on page 16. There is a chart breaking down the anatomy of a web address. I think we forget how truly complex web address are. It's just become second nature for most of us to type in a .com or a .html without thinking about what it really means. I also found it interesting that on page 19 there is another chart that talks about domain names. Such as what com, org, or net means. Com is a commercial or profit organization, org is a nonprofit organization, and net is a network. 

The only thing that may make using this book difficult is it was published in 2010. Even though that was only 2 years ago technology has advanced so much since then. In the book there are examples of web screenshots. The tool bars on top of the screenshots look almost ancient compared to what they look like today.