Open Mic Night is Thursday night!
January 12, 2010
One of my favorite things about entrepreneurs is that they are always usually working on cool stuff. One of the misconceptions some entrepreneurs have is they feel like they have to keep their ideas a secret. But sharing your ideas with others is one of the best things you can do to help test your idea and put them through the fire!
This Thursday, ReInvent Abilene is hosting Open Mic Night for any and all to come and let people know what cool things you are up to. Come prepared to share the cool things you have going on in technology and business development! The event will be held at Texas Tech University in Abilene across from the downtown Post Office from 5pm to 7pm. Drinks and snacks will be provided.
Hope to see you there!
Internet Programming and My Attempt at being a Professor
January 11, 2010
Last Fall, I was fortunate enough to be an adjunct professor at a local university, McMurry University. The Dean of Business gave me a call asking if I knew anyone with a masters at Milsoft who would be interested in teaching, and those I asked didn’t seem to be interested, so I thought I’d give it a shot. Sure enough, I was picked and the rest is history.
I really enjoyed the experience, and from the student responses, I’m pretty sure they learned a thing or two. The course was Intro to Internet Programming. Even though the students feared programming, there was no way they were getting out of Internet PROGRAMMING without learning some code. So, I set out to cover the primary technologies and languages it takes to create a web application in a hands-on sort of way. For the first half of the course, I talked a lot, but once the basics were covered it was all hands-on, programming assignments. Having recently graduated from college, I tried to mimic the professors that I really enjoyed learning from. So, for starters: no attendance policy, real-world problems and hands-on training.
I’ve posted all my slides and assignments below. I’d love to hear your questions, comments and feedback.
*** For any computer science / business-related university staff or faculty reading this, I’m curious to know your thoughts on how I think databases should be taught in universities.
The “Anatomy of Web Apps” slides covers the flow of web applications, showing how data is transferred and introduces the basic technologies required.
“Introduction to XHTML” simply gives a breakdown for how to use the markup language, tells what it is and what it isn’t.
“Designing Websites with CSS” breaks down the CSS language and gives some examples how you can use it.
“Javascript Programming Basics” outlines the basics for most programming languages.
Everyone needs to use a Javascript library when programming in Javascript, there’s really no reason not too. Learn the “jQuery Basics” and make javascript fun again.
And here are the slides for a very “Basic User Authentication with PHP & MySQL”. Please read the disclaimer slide at the end.
And for the assignments:
As I said before, I’d love to hear any questions, comments and feedback. Thanks!
Database Courses in Universities
After going through the Computer Science degree plan at Abilene Christian University and being an adjunct professor at McMurry University, I think a slight change in how we teach databases at universities would make a big difference. I give credit to Dr. Barton, who taught Database Theory when I was a sophomore at ACU (nearly 5 years ago?! wow.), as being one of the most useful computer sciences classes I ever took. Reason being: databases are used in nearly all forms of software. I had already dabbled in PHP/MySQL before taking the course, so my biggest benefit from the class was learning how to utilize joins and indexing. From talking to others students, it doesn’t seem like they’ve had as lucky of an experience as I, and I think that is because they didn’t see the practicality of the database course. Having already played with relational databases, it was much easier for my to comprehend the deeper theory behind databases.
So, on with my suggestion:
If you have anything to do with course curriculum for any degree plans that requires a database-related course, I highly recommend the topic of databases be split into two courses. The first should be a hands-on, 100/200s level, “Intro to Relational Databases” course that is entirely about learning SQL and writing queries, nothing that goes too deep into the theoretical and mathematical side of databases. Reserve the theoretical and mathematical course for the upper-level, 300/400s course. I suggest this for a few reasons: 1) Simply knowing how to create and structure a database and using SQL to SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE and JOIN records can take someone a long ways, in many different professions. 2) By having a lower level intro course, you can open up the basic knowledge of databases and SQL to other degree plans. 3) You just don’t need the theoretical and mathematical knowledge behind databases to make effective use of databases.
By all means, relational databases and SQL barely scratch the surface of the entirety of databases, and the in-depth science behind databases is absolutely necessary for those who want to learn, research and improve databases, so it should still be a required, upper-level course for any Computer Science major. I believe giving the “Intro to Relational Databases” course a lower barrier to entry and a higher hands-on experience will dramatically improve students’ understanding of databases and incline them to be more interested in the deeper theory of databases.
Thoughts?
