Confused about need to boil ?

I'm reading John Palmer's "How to Brew" book. I am using a can of Coopers hopped pale ale extract and 2lbs of spray dried malt extract instead of sugar. I understand that I don't need to boil the Coopers extract because it is hopped but do I need to boil the dried malt ?

I don't have experience with hopped extract; most of us don't use it because we like to have more control over our recipes and add the hops ourselves. There's certainly nothing wrong with it though, and boiling won't hurt it. You might lose the hop flavor and aroma but you can add your own hops for flavor and aroma. The bitterness will stay. It is important to boil all extract. At the very least, you could add the hopped extract late in the boil (15 mins remaining).

Posting your recipe would help too.

Welcome to the forum.
You should boil the DME for 10 - 15 minutes just to make sure it is dissolved, and to kill off anything that may infect your beer. If you are adding additional bittering hops, then boiling for at least 40 minutes is mandatory.

-a.

Thanks. I did boil the DME and added the can towards the end. The book talks about a hot break. Not sure if this happened but there was some fine gravel type material after the boil. The main problem I had was trying to keep it boiling with the pot uncovered. My hob seems to have difficulty keeping a 4 gallon uncovered pot boiling. I was worried about keeping it covered as the book said impurities that boil off condense back in to the wort.

I have bought unhopped extract and hops for my second attempt. I decided to try and keep it simple for my first attempt.

24 hours later and the airlock is bubbling away so fingers crossed!

Sounds like you did great for your first brew.
Before the second brew you might want to find out the maximum amount your stove can boil without covering and use that amount. IMHO, adding top off water is better than a wimpy or covered boil.