[Informatics] Database choices for U3AoS1

Wed Jan 13 10:11:03 AEDT 2016

Thanks Laurie and Phil.

 I have been using Access and not planning to change in my year 12 outcomes.

I tried PHP and SQL as last year we had students from our school studying SoftDev distance ed and they had to use PHP and SQL. I'm lucky enough to have both IT classes running this year but I think it would still be good to learn and have options for students in the future.

I will look at both suggestions.

Thanks again Laurie and Phil for the positive, helpful advice.

Regards

Sandra

Sent on the go with Vodafone

Sandra Mobbs

Teacher
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Caroline Chisholm Catholic College
204 Churchill Avenue, Braybrook. 3019

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-------- Original message --------
From: Phil Brown <pdbrown at gmail.com>
Date: 13/01/2016 9:23 am (GMT+10:00)
To: Year 12 VCE Informatics Teachers' Mailing List <informatics at edulists.com.au>
Subject: Re: [Informatics] Database choices for U3AoS1

Hi All,

Laurie's right. It is a bit late to be debating about what database to use for U3O1 however there has been a bit of discussion about using a LAMP server or installing MySQL and using MySQL Admin to manage queries.

I would like to throw another suggestion into the ring. I use Rstudio<https://www.rstudio.com/> for all of my data management and I think it would be an excellent program to teach, starting at year 10, because it has application for both year 11 and 12 in programming and research. It would also help students at university level in their research in any subject.

I have included an attachment to demonstrate how SQL can be used to filter and sort a table of data. It's a simple example but I think you will get the idea. I used Markdown, which is a component of Rstudio, to create the html attachment.

You will need to download the attachment and then run it a browser.

Regards,

Phil Brown
Wellington SC

On Tue, Jan 12, 2016 at 11:11 AM, Mark <mark at vceit.com<mailto:mark at vceit.com>> wrote:
Hi all.

I don't wish to tell people how to suck eggs, but a few people have asked me to recommend a RDBMS for them to teach for U3O1.

I am finding it interesting that people are still thinking about the software to use for U3O1 when there are only about 3 weeks to go before classes begin (assuming you're doing U3O1 as your first outcome). I've found the mastering a new RDBMS is a major investment of time and effort, a task not be lightly undertaken in a hurry..

Telling people what RDBMS to use is like telling them what sort of dog they should buy. It depends a lot on your local circumstances, computing platforms and servers, finances, technical support competence, dog-handing/database skills and so on. I usually tell people, "Use the database you already know the best."  You wouldn't want to be trying to teach kids to fully exploit a database that you yourself are only just getting used to.

And though I used Filemaker for all database tasks when I taught - simply because I already knew it inside-out - if I had to choose a database for 2016, I wouldn't use Filemaker. It's expensive: education pricing for 25 seats is $1,824 per year or $5,450 outright. And as others have mentioned, Filemaker is a bit eccentric in places, such as defining calculations as fields, and allowing repeating fields. It's like the Bjork of the database world.

MS Access is not quite as easy to learn as Filemaker, but it is ubiquitous and there is a lot of support for it.
MySQL - free and used everywhere - would be very attractive. I'd be tempted to investigate that.

Regards
Mark

P.S. Just reminding you all about Kellybase - my DBMS written in 'Scratch' and available for less than $300,000 per seat, due to be released sometime in 2019.
Order now.
If I get a few sales, I might even make it relational, and add support for new field data types like integer, floating point, string and Boolean!

On 11 January 2016 at 20:38, Laurie Savage <08327998 at pvgc.vic.edu.au<mailto:08327998 at pvgc.vic.edu.au>> wrote:
Download XAMPP it is fairly straight forwrd. Al my kid are using it. You might need to to fiddle with the port settings once you are back on the school network bu IO can show you how if you are at the session on 19/1

Laurie Savage

On 11 Jan 2016, at 6:21 PM, Sandra Mobbs <s.mobbs at cccc.vic.edu.au<mailto:s.mobbs at cccc.vic.edu.au>> wrote:

I tried learning PHP  last year with a view to u
sing PHP and SQL for the database component. Nutting out how to do it over the Internet,  I downloaded WAMPP server to run the PHP but it required administrator rights everytime I wanted to run a program.  I ended up continuing with Access as neither the students nor I have administrator rights.

I would love to know how others are set up to use SQL so I can see what I can organise to have another go.

Sent from Outlook<http://taps.io/outlookmobile> Mobile

Sandra Mobbs

Teacher
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Caroline Chisholm Catholic College
204 Churchill Avenue, Braybrook. 3019

T:  03 9296 5311<tel:03%209296%205311> | F: 03 9296 5381<tel:03%209296%205381>
E:  s.mobbs at cccc.vic.edu.au<mailto:s.mobbs at cccc.vic.edu.au>

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On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 7:20 PM -0800, "Vella, James" <jvella at mackillop.vic.edu.au<mailto:jvella at mackillop.vic.edu.au>> wrote:

Hi Richard

My gut feeling would be to ditch FileMaker and go with either an SQL or Access backend for your database. My reading of U3O1 is that a solution is required to be produced (ie. Backend and UI). While the learning curve may seem big this year, you could always introduce SQL or Access as part of U2O3 this year and not have such a steep one next year.

My guess would be that Access is used more than FileMaker (given the widespread availability of Office products) and follows a similar syntax to SQL when you get past the wizard-based stuff.

For the U3O1 SAC, as I said, my reading is that a solution is required to be developed using a RDBMS – that comes directly from the Outcome statement.

Hope that clears it up for you.

James.

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James Vella
Digital Technologies Learning Area Leader eLearning Leader
MacKillop College
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________________________________
From: informatics-bounces at edulists.com.au<mailto:informatics-bounces at edulists.com.au> [mailto:informatics-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Fox, Richard R
Sent: Monday, January 11, 2016 12:56 PM
To: informatics at edulists.com.au<mailto:informatics at edulists.com.au>
Subject: [Informatics] Database choices for U3AoS1

Hi, Happy New Year everyone!

I'd like to thank everyone for the excellent contributions made by members of the list, it's a great community.

I'm interested to see what choices people are making for the database to be used in U3O1. Last year I used FileMaker Pro, which I have some previous experience in from many years back, but I have been working extensively in mySQL since then for my own projects.

It seems the choices are:
1) FileMaker Pro - easy to get started, good for form design, but confusing when trying to separate database design (tables, fields, types, validation) from UI which is done through layouts. Using portals as an abstraction for relationships is also confusing. I found students could get up to speed quickly with layout design but explaining queries was really hard because it is all UI-driven, and finds are stored rather than scripted. Also, it is very relaxed with data validation, so it will happily let you do calculations with price values for example that have been stored as a Text data type. Also, I don't think it is really used much in the real world these days?

2) SQL - I think this is really a better way to teach how a database is structured, so that one can see it is just a data store and then one sets up relationships between tables. It also enforces data types properly. I found even whilst teaching FileMaker last year it was still easier to explain queries using SQL statements. But is it too steep a learning curve?

3) Microsoft Access -  I have not used this before, and really don't want to invest time to learn it when I have other choices. From my understanding it is not widely used anymore, much like FileMaker?

Of these, I'm still leaning towards using mySQL because (a) it lets one concentrate on correct RDBMS design, without UI complications or abstractions, (b) it is easier to check SQL scripts for correct operation (c) it is far more relevant these days being the common foundation of web apps using PHP and mySQL back ends, (d) it is free and cross-platform.

Where I'm still not clear is whether the study design says they have to build a full application using a database (so, it has a UI), or whether they only have to demonstrate correct table and relationship design. If they are expected to make an end-user application then they would need to use PHP in web pages to interact with the database, which would increase the complexity of the task. But correct design, use of queries and validation can be demonstrated through interaction with the SQL interpreter. The other design requirements of the outcome could still be met by layout diagrams, test plans, etc.

Looking forwards to some insights from others.

Thanks,
Richard
--
Richard Fox
Teacher of IT and Science
eLearning Coordinator
Learning Technologies and ICT Infrastructure
Diamond Valley College
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