On Thursday 13 May 2004 12:54 pm, Grainge, Derek wrote:
Hi Garry
Web projects are notoriously difficult to get high grades in so why not do a database project instead.
At what level? My GCSE students (as default) would do two projects, Web and Modelling, for AQA. I'd direct them AWAY from databases as the work is more technical / time-consuming for no great benefit. Most marks come from the report covering the project development, and so longs there's a reasonable level of content the exam board have no axe to grind. I don't agree that web projects are 'notoriously difficult' to get good marks in - there's plenty scope.
e.g. a website of 8-12 pages, including text, pictures, perhaps other media, and an online form which works. Without the last there are criteria (data gathering, validation, outputs) which the project can't satisfy. We have a spare web server which my students publish on internally to show they have done all of that successfully. Perhaps famous last words, but my students have been doing that for some years now without complaint. And they get good grades. All of which is jumping through hoops, but successful jumping.
I would agree that an A2 ICT student (we do OCR) would almost have to do a database. They have to do something reasonably complex - which may come from integration of products (eg Web site with database back end), or from the complexity of the database & the task itself. I guess an equally complex spreadsheet involving multiple data sets with relationships between them would be satisfactory. But the board have said they're not interested in artificially complex solutions to problems.
Derek
I was only talking A-level and agree with you on all your comments. I was trying to suggest that there are other ways that you can adapt in order to use Linux for teaching. regards garry