Reviewer Katrina Conaghan makes particular note of how the books aid teachers both at the beginning of each unit with the Australian Curriculum capabilities summary, and with the support files such as exercises that the students can use immediately. The review goes on to say that the books in this series “cover the basics really well across a wide range of software types” and “the layout of the text is student friendly”. Read the full review below.

Practice IT for the Australian Curriculum: Book 1 Lower Secondary
Bowden and Maguire
When I look at this book I can see it has been written with students and teachers in mind. The start of every chapter informs the teacher of the knowledge and skills covered in the chapter, uses across the curriculum, alignment with the Australian Curriculum, capabilities covered such as numeracy and critical thinking and digital technologies. All that wonderful information for the front of your program - done. It does cover the basics really well, the introductory theory is succinct and up to date. The layout of the text is student friendly. I appreciate that there is more than one software choice to accomplish the tasks in the text. I really appreciate that the support files include exercise files so I don’t have to go away and create them and students get started straight away on the IT exercises. The interactive text includes videos, interactive quizzes and drag and drop. What I like most about the book is its simplicity. It is covering the basics across a wide range of software types such as word, movie making, multimedia, and programming. When students arrive from primary school they often have such a wide range of skills, with significant gaps. This book has you covered.

Practice IT for the Australian Curriculum: Book 2 Middle Secondary
Bowden and Maguire 
Well what can I say – ditto for the book above except this one has been written for middle secondary. There are some differences. The exercises and content are more advanced. Accordingly there aren’t two software choices for some of the chapters. The programming language covered is python. I do appreciate the effort that has gone into both texts. They are practical books and something that will fill a real need amongst teachers who struggle to keep up with not only the amount of software required but the speed at which it changes.