Question 351 of 365: Should we ask for database access?

Databases are magic.

The front end of every website that you go to is based upon a layer of databases working hard in the background. Each database holds the keys to your passwords and to your conversations. They are the places that context is captured and value is assessed. With a simple query of a well organized database you can archive more information than you could ever hope to understand. They are magic because they let everything that we do connect to everything else. They are also magic because almost no one knows how to understand them.

Even database experts have to sit down with intense documentation in order to figure out how tables function and how information is being written and rewritten. We never see the databases that make Facebook function or gmail work. We just expect them exist and do the things that we want. In essence, the database is the man behind the curtain. We must never know what the real nature of our reality. We must never see the rules that are being outlined by the formatting of fields.

We must simply go by and use the API’s that companies open up for us. We must only look at the data that is presented and not pull it for ourselves. We must attach meaning only to the information that is given and not to the millions upon millions of searchable fields that could be open to us if someone would just let us in.

The front end is fine for most of us. Most of us are not interested in seeing how our social networks actually manipulate our information. Most of us couldn’t care less about not being able to match up users to uses or friends to functions. And yet, I think we should ask anyway.

I think that we should ask every service that we encounter if we can take a look in the back room. I think we should be able to demand that they reveal the infrastructure that is at work and the processes that will define the future of our data.

I don’t want to simply be able to export. I want to be able to manipulate and massage. I want to be able to see just how my information is affected by everyone else’s. I want to be able to measure the network affect and search through what influence really measures up to be. In short, I want co-own everything that I have shared and all that has been shared with me. I want to write a query to show my engagement and then see how it fits in with the rest of what I have created. I want to see the whole spectrum of my interaction, I want the full picture of who I have been online.

And that can only happen if I get access to the database. It can only happen if I can see the back end of every application I use. It can only happen if I have a relationship with my data that allows me to manipulate it on a level that is independent from the uses that others have invented.

I want to be the architect and archivist. And I want everyone else to be the same. Security, copyright, privacy and intelectual property issues issues aside, I want access to manipulate the world’s data. Are we getting closer or farther away from that ideal?

As things come together

As we meet to talk about bringing all tools under one roof, as we
start to work toward a single solution, as we start to use the same
language to discuss learning, as we get on the same page with
professional development models, as we create in the same formats, as
we pull from the same information and databases, as we get into the
same ganntt chart and project plan, as we start to realize the same
vision…
 
As we begin to all of these things more and more, I feel as though we
may lose some of what makes pushing boundaries seem so right.
 
 I believe that there is value in scope creep, so long as it is
reflective of the needs of learners.
 
I believe in not choosing a final solution.
 
I believe that disruptive innovation comes when fast moving ideas are
allowed to move fast.
 
I believe in knowing whose shoulders we are standing on and whose feet
we will support.

Posted via email from olco5′s posterous

Install Moodle on an Oracle Database (in 25 minutes or less)

Install Moodle on an Oracle Database Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2180)

While this post may not be for my typical reader, I believe that it has value to the larger online education community, mostly because many of us are faced with making current systems work with what know to be the way forward. The specific system in question is using an Oracle database to work with Moodle. While it has been done before, some of the instructions didn’t ring true for me. I also wanted to be able to provide a step-by-step account of how I have done it and how it can be done.

So, without further ado, here is the Google Doc that gives the step by step account of just how to do it.

And, just to prove that it can be done in 25 minutes or less, I have included a screencast of the entire process that I used to revise the Google Doc and make sure everything works.

I hope it can be of use to you and yours.