Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Computer Textbooks For High Schoolers?

Posted by kdawson on from the basics-for-beginners dept.

wetdogjp writes "I recently became a high school teacher, and I've inherited three classes with no textbooks! While two of my classes are introductory in nature, one for computers in general and the other for networking, the third class should prepare juniors and seniors to enter the workforce and start a career in computers. We have some older textbooks by Heathkit available, but the newest of them are four years old. Do Slashdotters have any favorite textbooks that can help kids on their way to becoming junior sysadmins, programmers, networking professionals, etc.? Would you suggest books to prepare students to take certification tests such as A+, Network+, or others? Any textbooks we use would need to cover quite a breadth of material, such as PC hardware, operating systems, networking, security, and more."

2 of 361 comments (clear)

  1. what languages? by story645 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Dietel & Dietel publish a bunch of intro books (c++, java, a few others) that have a bunch of supplements/coding examples/etc. on their website. They're very newbie friendly and cover a good deal of information. Actually, so do some of the AP comp sci review books (my Baron's AP Java book has a lot of clear examples.)

    Look at other high schools and community colleges that teach the same thing you do and see what books they're using.

    Certification prep is a double edged sword. The books may be accessible, but they also may be too focused on the test and therefore teach to it rather than teach general skills.

    Also, you don't need to use a book for everything. All my intro programming books do a brief overview of hardware, and my profs add when needed. I didn't even have a textbook for my high school computer hardware class (basically a build your own computer thing, but we also learned about karnough maps, logic, and other basics.)

    --
    open source modern art: laser taggi
  2. Books by matria · · Score: 4, Informative

    Talk to the people at O'Reilly, especially their Safari bookshelf. They might be able to cut you a deal for educational use.

    http://oreilly.com/
    http://safari.oreilly.com/?cid=orm-nav-global