Look how far we've come

When I started this course I did not know much about the building of databases. I was very hesitant to start downloading programs and files. I was nervous to close any programs. The ubuntu program that could have closed and lost so I was afraid to close it at all. After talking to classmate who had the same hesitation I realized that if I followed the directions I would be ok.

I slowly gained confidence as the lessons progressed. I still was hesitant to hit the enter key to see my results and was pleasantly surprised when the command line worked. This last week I used my first VM because I am not sure if I loaded all the programs needed onto the second user we made. However, as my gut feeling proved, I had not given the first VM permissions needed to write files so it was a challenge to go back and find where that was in the assignments.

Once I was directed to the assignment to give permissions I was able to speed ahead. I understood what I was doing even though I was slow and had to redo a few of the steps. I was able to make a database for the family photos I brought back from Chicago of my family and ancestors.

SQL

The SQL was hard for me this week partly because I did not have access to the internet until Sunday afternoon. I had to do it all in three days where I usually work all week on the assignments. If I had more time I think the logical order of SQL would have been easy to understand. I could not get the photographer table to work but had to move on to get it all done. I plan to continue to work on it as I move into the next units.

ERD

In your blog this week talk briefly about what concepts in this unit you found most difficult. Are there still things that are unclear? How might you go about furthering your understanding of these topics?

The concepts in this unit that were most dificult were understanding the ERD. I understood the spreadsheet with the information and the need to seperate the different entities and attributes but I could not quite understand which entity went where and why. I have read the recommended references at the bottom of the Coulson tutoral and am getting a better sense of the relationships. I will reread them after next weeks readings to make sure I understand the concept.

The website Bruce mentioned was very helpful
http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_models/. It helped me see that the database is the bigger picture made up of all the little pieces of data.

Technology Plans

The State of the Union article was interestion but not a surprise. The government is always spending too much money and IT plans are no exception.
The ALA plan looks very organized and easy to implement. I am a member but have not had too much contact at the national level. The AZ branch has a good handle on technology. I am looking forward to seeing how their plan unfolds.
The Gerding article was very helpful to me because it had a step-by-step plan for implementing technology in the library. The school district I am in has a good plan that seems to follow this idea. They had a vision, they did inventory to see what was in the schools, They assessed what was needed and the budgeted for the technology. They are evaluating by asking teachers what they think of the new technology and taking suggestions.
This class has given me a new appreciation for behind the scene technology development. I would like to be involved with the planning of new technology implementation in a school district in the future. The information I have gained in this class has given me a good base of knowledge to build on in the future.

XML

Discuss briefly how you went about learning XML and which resources you used. Comment briefly on how helpful they were and indicate any intermediate or advanced modules or sections you reviewed.

This week we looked at XML. I had heard of it but never paid attention to what it was. I read all the links in the lecture which helped me immensely. The w3school tutorial was most helpful as it was easy to read and moved slowly (I was able to keep up and understand). The DTD and XML Schema were a little harder to understand. But I will go back and reread them for better comprehension. The Introduction to XML by Mark Long was also very informative and easy to listen to and view. I am a visual learner so the screenshots were most valuable to my learning. I did look at the intermediate modules from w3schools but my eyes started glossing over trying to remember all the vocabulary. I did the first three sections on the UACBT site; Welcome Info, XML Basics, and XML Documents. This gave me a grasp on XML and I look forward to learning more.
After doing the tutorials, the two articles in the lecture had a greater meaning for me. Roy Tennant wrote "By its very nature, MARC is flat, whereas a table of contents is hierarchical" in his article "MARC Must Die". This made sense to me and I can see how stiff MARC is and how flexible XML is.

As stated in XML, a Choice or Replacement, "Due to Unicode and platform neutrality, XML offers the greatest promise of data longevity (or future-proofing), as hardware, software, and network protocols continue to change." using XML will help keep libraries in the forefront of the information highway.