May Meeting 5/21/2009 - Introductory Database Education at PSU

[Mark Wong <markwkm(at)gmail(dot)com>]

Len Shapiro will be speaking at the next PDXPUG meeting at FreeGeek
(at 7:00pm - 1731 SE 10th Avenue, Portland, OR).

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Abstract: I'll survey how I teach the introductory database course at
PSU.  My goal for the talk is to elicit suggestions for how I could do
a better job.  The theme of the course is "transforming data into
Information".  I use a 200 Meg database, hosted on PostgreSQL, instead
of the one-slide databases used in typical intro courses, to
illustrate the principles of the course.  The database is Federal
Elections Commission data re donations to candidates, so queries often
reflect real questions about the real data.

Bio: Len Shapiro has been a professor at PSU for 23 years.  His
research interests are primarily in query processing.

Looking forward to seeing everyone there....and of course, drinks at
the Lucky Lab (http://www.luckylab.com/ ) at 915 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
afterwards.