[Year 12 IPM] Database software for 2007 - Access advice

Fri Oct 13 19:33:21 EST 2006

Sylvia - after 'teaching' access to IPM students for a few years about
10 years ago, I resolved to get on top of it and attended two
consecutive CAE Access courses, one building on the last. It was
excellent, and I have had little trouble since then. It is really worth
the effort.
The biggest tip for me was recognizing the role and interrelationship
between 4 database objects - tables, forms, queries and reports.
In fact, whenever I am introducing Access to students, I draw a diagram
on the board, with tables in the middle, queries below, forms to the
left and reports to the right. I then discuss with students the roles
played by each object in the ongoing functional life of the access
database. I also draw arrows to demonstrate the movement of data (or to
be more exact, the influence over data) between the objects, with double
arrows connecting the following: table & form, table & query, form &
query, and single arrows connecting: table and report, query and report.
I have also learned to be fussy about naming the objects, beginning with
the following followed by a singular name e.g. tbl-customer,
frm-customer, qry-customer, rpt-customer.
I am also very fond of the Graeme Summers books (for myself - I do not
use them as textbooks). Also, the "Bible" series is great as a reference
textbook for Access, to help you work out how to do something you are
sure is possible but cannot remember how.
Hope that helps a little!
Cheers, Keith

On Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:40:00 +1000, "Sylvia Pastore"
<pastosy at mowbray.vic.edu.au> said:
> i am teaching databases for the first time for my year 11 class as was  
> wonering if anyone has any tasks that can assist with teaching them  
> the skills. thanks
> -- 
> Sylvia Pastore
> Daily Organiser
> Mowbray College
> Town Centre
> Caroline Springs
> 
> 
> Quoting "Potter, Stuart J" <potter.stuart.j at edumail.vic.gov.au>:
> 
> >
> >
> > Donald High School will be using Filemaker Pro, for two of the   
> > reasons listed.
> >
> > - It's easy to learn and easy to use. (good for the students and me too)
> > - The school has a fully licenced copy of Filemaker Pro 8.0 (which   
> > is a recent version). We used to do our reports on it.
> >
> > Incidentally we're also a Macintosh school (45 desktops and a couple  
> >  of laptops) shared by 165-170 students....although we do have one   
> > lab of Macs (20) with Intel chips meaning we can use Windows as well.
> >
> > Incidentally what programming / scripting  languages are being   
> > planned by teachers? Having done very little programming, I'm   
> > vacillating between Visual Basic (seems to be a few support   
> > materials around) and Javascript or HTML programming (obviously ties  
> >  in well with web design and doesn't need any extra software apart   
> > from the source code.)
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Stuart Potter
> > IT co-ordinator
> > Donald High School
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ipm-bounces at edulists.com.au on behalf of Mark Kelly
> > Sent: Thu 10/12/2006 12:39 PM
> > To: Year 12 Information Technology Processing and Management   
> > Teachers'Mailing List
> > Subject: [Year 12 IPM] Database software for 2007
> >
> > [7th attempt - our whole school has been blacklisted by SpamCop - and we
> > hope we are now off the blacklist!]
> >
> > Hi all.  Here's a frisky cat to throw among the pigeons.
> >
> > I'm curious what database management software will people be using for
> > ITA Unit 3 Outcome 1 next year?
> >
> > At the VITTA presentation I did on ITA in August, I recommended that if
> > we got organised and agreed on a standard tool we could be much more
> > efficient when sharing tutorials, sample tasks, tips and hints, sample
> > outcomes etc - all of which will be a big in 2007 as we adjust to the
> > new course.
> >
> > The main DBMS contenders I see are:
> >
> >
> > --- MS Access
> > - Access is not a standard part of the average MS Office suite (AFAIK),
> > so many kids are unlikely to have it at home, so it would be hard to
> > assign homework or practice tasks using it.
> > - It costs big money if kids have to buy it for home.
> > - It costs big money for non-government schools.
> > - For most people, it's not as easy to learn as Filemaker is.
> >
> >
> > --- Filemaker
> > - Even fewer kids are likely to have Filemaker at home, so assigning
> > home practice would be nearly impossible.
> > - It's easy to learn (especially creating programming scripts) and easy
> > to use.
> > - It costs big money if kids had to buy it for home.
> > - It costs big money for schools to buy.
> >
> > (Having said that, it's the database I use for McKinnon's reporting
> > package, and the database I'm most skilled with.)
> >
> >
> > --- OpenOffice.org Base
> > - It's FREE for students and schools.
> > - It's compatible with MS Access (and can read Access database files)
> > - It's pretty much as easy to use as Access.
> > - There's some online support for it, but more is coming and we can work
> > as a team to develop all we need!
> > - Did I mention it's FREE?
> > - It comes with other open source replacements for Word, Excel,
> > Powerpoint, drawing software etc.
> > - It even has its own equivalent of VBA for programming macros.
> > - Oh yeah - and it's FREE!
> >
> >
> > --- MySQL
> > I only include this because I've heard of one school planning to use it.
> >   I would not recommend it because it's far too complex for kids to
> > learn from scratch in VCE: too much programming required to get the job
> > done.  Way overkill, IMHO.
> >
> >
> >
> > If you get some time as the year winds down, how about getting a copy of
> > (http://openoffice.org) - it's about 50M to download, and is available
> > via WWW and Bittorrent.
> >
> > Have a play, see what you think.
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Mark K
> >
> > --
> > Mark Kelly
> > Manager - Information Systems
> > McKinnon Secondary College
> > McKinnon Rd McKinnon 3204, Victoria, Australia
> > Direct line / Voicemail: 8520 9085
> > School Phone +613 8520 9000  <<< NEW NUMBER
> > School Fax +613 95789253
> >
> > IPM Lecture notes: http://vceit.com
> > Moderator: IPM Mailing List
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > http://www.edulists.com.au - FAQ, resources, subscribe, unsubscribe
> > IPM Mailing List kindly supported by
> > http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au - Victorian Curriculum and Assessment   
> > Authority and
> > http://www.vitta.org.au  - VITTA Victorian Information Technology   
> > Teachers Association Inc
> >
> >
> >
> > Important -
> > This email and any attachments may be confidential. If received in   
> > error, please contact us and delete all copies. Before opening or   
> > using attachments check them for viruses and defects. Regardless of   
> > any loss, damage or consequence, whether caused by the negligence of  
> >  the sender or not, resulting directly or indirectly from the use of  
> >  any attached files our liability is limited to resupplying any   
> > affected attachments. Any representations or opinions expressed are   
> > those of the individual sender, and not necessarily those of the   
> > Department of Education & Training.
> > _______________________________________________
> > http://www.edulists.com.au - FAQ, resources, subscribe, unsubscribe
> > IPM Mailing List kindly supported by
> > http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au - Victorian Curriculum and Assessment   
> > Authority and
> > http://www.vitta.org.au  - VITTA Victorian Information Technology   
> > Teachers Association Inc
> 
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> This email and any files transmitted with it are privileged and  
> confidential, and are intended only for the use of the intended  
> recipient.  If you are not the intended recipient, or responsible for  
> delivering this email to the intended recipient, any use,  
> dissemination, forwarding, printing or copying of this email and any  
> attachments is strictly prohibited.  If you have received this email  
> in error please delete it immediately from your computer.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> http://www.edulists.com.au - FAQ, resources, subscribe, unsubscribe
> IPM Mailing List kindly supported by
> http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au - Victorian Curriculum and Assessment
> Authority and
> http://www.vitta.org.au  - VITTA Victorian Information Technology
> Teachers Association Inc
Keith Richardson