[dbrowning]

04/11/2013 at 3:01 pm

Just got an evaluation copy of Leckie and Leckie N5 Comp Science “Success guide” book. I’ve just had a flick through it but my first impression is that it’s a bit light on content (3 pages on databases) and seems to have a lot of focus on programming. I know it’s a “success guide” and so not a full textbook but we’re looking to give textbooks to all our pupils and I’m not sure this would be ideal.

What’s others thoughts on it?

Cheers

[Lee Murray]

05/11/2013 at 9:37 am

I have the Frank Frame ‘How to Pass’ book and it also is light on content. There are uses of ‘program’ and ‘programme’ in the same paragraph with the same meaning, mistakes in code, botched screenshots and many tasks are too contrived even for raw novices. About 50% of the book is programming and is not very well explained (about 60 pages). 2 and a half pages are on databases, 3 pages on web pages, 3 pages on scripting and mark-up languages then from there it’s a paragraph per item in the assessment specification document.

As you said, it’s only a guide and not a comprehensive text book, but I wouldn’t hand it out to pupils. I feel their own notes would be much more useful to them, coupled with copies of all presentations.

[dbrowning]

05/11/2013 at 2:12 pm

So basically there’s not a decent book out yet? Hodder and Gibson is bringing one out in the new year I think, we’ll see what that’s like.

[Alan McGregor]

07/11/2013 at 10:53 am

We have bought the AOK PDF files written by Eric Forrester and I would recommend them. There are a few errors but nothing major as far as I can see. The SDD Unit uses Scratch and VB as its two environments and includes Haggis pseudocode. More info here: http://www.aokonline.com/aok_products.html