I am one of 70,000 people (so far) signed up for Stanford’s Introduction to Databases online course with Jennifer Widom. It runs from now (it officially started Monday) to December 12th and covers XML, SQL, relational design theory, querying, UML, recursion (see also: recursion*), OLAP and a few other things.
I was pleasantly surprised by how much of the introduction I understood (I have finished the overall introduction and the relational databases introduction; I am partway through the XML section) although really I shouldn’t be. I’ve been using MS Access for about 12 years; various library databases for much longer; I’m familiar with XML for its library and web applications, and so on. That, and I took every first year computer science course available in my first year of university & would have done more but for that pesky calculus.
Anyway… in the midst of one of the videos popped up quizzes! (Hey! I wasn’t expecting that! I had to put down my knitting!). Unfortunately, I flubbed each of them in succession. The quizzes asked whether in a given situation it was better to use a relational database, XML, either, or neither. With a wrong answer the software allowed me to guess again until I got the right answer at which point it allowed me to “show explanation.” In each case, I understood the explanation but couldn’t figure out why I didn’t see it initially. Hopefully I’ll figure out more as I go along, otherwise I am going to have to watch the lectures more closely.
It’s a very different way to go through a class, knowing there are tests and assignments — I’ve grown used to free webinars with no strings attached that lead to me wandering off mid-lecture. Guess I won’t be doing much wandering during these lectures… but I am going to keep knitting.
*the obligatory circular reference was given to prove my Nerd Cred.
Yes, keep up the knitting! It keeps things interesting and helps to concentrate.
I haven’t done a webinar that used quizzes, etc. that’s a good tactic to keep you attentive.
Well done Cheryl!