The database portion of this chapter intrigued me most because I’m so unfamiliar with it. In my previous professional life, I could depend on other people to create database applications for me, but now, if I want one, I have to do it myself. I found it interesting that the text discussed that even though a database has what appears like ‘cells’ in a spreadsheet, they don’t function in the same manner. This is an important distinction to make to students when teaching the lesson.
Integrating Technology: My Junior history class is going to be helping the local veterans create a list of veterans for our county. We do have Microsoft Office 2007 on our computers, which allows us to create a spreadsheet and import the information into Microsoft Access, the database program. This will allow us to create a searchable database for such fields as ‘branch served’ or ‘medals awarded’ or something along those lines. We will coordinate this with a local veterans group to see what information they want.
Concern: The amount of time to delve into database instruction could get overwhelming quite quickly if the lesson is planned quite well. To be sure that students have a useful database, the information must be input in a manner that is consistent, otherwise the information is useless. Some schools have classes dedicated to database programs, so the idea of having the students gaining a useful, working knowledge in one or two lessons is somewhat limited.
Bryan,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that a true database is different than a spreadsheet. The problem I am seeing is that so often, excel is used as a database-- my students are confused!
Let us know how it goes with your database activity!
Joan