Databases

A database is, “a simple but powerful productivity tool that can help students refine the data-collecting process.” (THE DATABASE America’s Presidents, April 1998 Learning and leading with Technology). What makes them unique from other technologies used for learning is that when the students collect their own data they can instantly compare the data and make sense of it by making a database. Even if their results are not presented in a fancy, way the information doesn’t need to be graphically pleasing to the eye because the information is there.

Databases are important because they can produce charts and graphs that different types of learners can find appealing and beneficial. Some students might understand the basic number expressions in a database, and other students might possibly read a pie chart and understand it more. Databases are also important in education so that teachers have databases not only for their educational resources, but also for the data basing of students. Students can be grouped by different learning abilities so teachers can better meet their scholastic needs.

Having students collect their own data, and make their own databases is a great idea in almost every classroom and I will definitely look into assigning data base assignments to my students as a teacher. When I am teaching I would consider using a database to group students to differentiate them into groups. Instigating higher order thinking is a general purpose of database assignments. Databases requires that students categorize, classify, and define separate entities of their database material.