July 27th, 2011 | by Derek Willis | published in Car Tools, Teaching
There was an interesting discussion on the NICAR-L listserv today about teaching database skills. More specifically, which software to teach and how to teach it. Should you go with SQLite, as I do? What about MS Access (the consensus seemed to lean against)? Is it too much to ask students to install database server software [...]
June 2nd, 2009 | by Derek Willis | published in Journalism, Teaching
I’ve been at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University since last week, talking to faculty members about using data management and analysis tools (spreadsheets, databases, mapping) in their courses. When they asked me to provide some training on Excel and Access, I agreed, but asked for the chance to make a case for [...]
January 23rd, 2008 | by Derek Willis | published in Car Tools, Teaching
Tomorrow marks the beginning of another semester of teaching CAR at George Washington University. It should have been last Thursday, but weather prevented me from getting back from New York in time. One of the issues that people who teach CAR have to deal with is which database manager to use. Most opt for MS [...]