Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to Lesson Two of our Flat-file Databases unit.

I'm Andy, and in this lesson, we're going to start using a flat-file database on a computer.

For this lesson you'll need access to the internet to get onto a particular website.

And you'll also need a pen and paper.

Other than that, please clear away any distractions, then we can start.

In this lesson, you're going to compare paper-based databases with a computer-based database.

You're going to navigate a flat-file database on a computer and compare different views of information.

You're going to be able to explain what a field is, and what a record is.

And you're also going to choose a field to sort by, to answer particular questions.

So we'll just start by reminding ourselves what we started with last lesson, and that is what a database is.

So a database is a collection of data that is stored in a computer that can easily be used and added to.

So this is a view of the database you're going to have a look at this week.

So it's an online database, and this bit here we're looking at is a record, okay? And it tells us we're on record three.

You can use these arrows to turn through the records, and you can see that there's different information about, on this one it's a little bumblebee.

And this record has five fields, you can see the arrows pointing to the fields, okay.

The fields are, it's what its name is.

You can see the picture, how many legs it has, whether it has wings, whether it has a shell, okay.

So this one is about a bumblebee.

So you can change the view, and the worksheet shows you how to change the view.

And in this view, which is a table view, you can see the field names are now here at the top.

So what you need to do is answer the questions that are shown, and you should be able to answer those questions by sorting the database.

So for example, if I click here, "How many legs," it will sort this column and all the other records with it, by how many legs.

So if I click it once, it will show me the most legs, going down to the least.

And if I click it again, it will show me the least legs going to the most.

So you need to answer the questions, and to answer them, you'll need to pick and choose which column to sort it by.

So you're choosing the field, and that field will then sort it lowest to smallest, smallest to highest, and so on.

So your first task will be to open the database and navigate it, and answer the questions on the worksheet.

So pause the video now.

Okay.

So let's have a look at those questions together then.

So here's the questions, and I need to change to table view, so I click on table view, and now I've got the headings across here.

So these headings, these are the fields.

Each one of these is a record.

So the first question was, "Which mini beast has the most legs?" So I think I've got "How many legs" here, I think I need to choose that one.

And if I click on it, it's gone from the lowest to the highest, and if I click it again, it goes from the highest to the lowest.

So the first one is the woodlouse.

Woodlouse has the most legs.

So which has the fewest legs? And we've just seen that if I click on this one again, it re-sorts it, and the fewest legs are the slug and the snail.

So there's two there with no legs at all.

It's got, "Which mini beast is at the beginning of the alphabet?" So that's by name.

If I go and click on the names, I can then see ant comes first.

We've got A, B, B, D, so that's alphabetical.

Ant is the first one alphabetically.

And which one comes last? I could scroll down and look, or I could click on it again and sort it the other way round, so sort it Z to A, and the woodlouse comes last alphabetically.

So you're going to have a look at a different database now.

This database is about countries, and you're going to try sorting them using the two different views.

So in this view, the card or the form view, there is a sort option here, and we can click on that and choose which way to sort it.

And on this view, you've already done this, you can sort it by the headings.

So either way, that's the field.

These are the fields.

You can sort the data in either view.

In this view, when you sort it, you'll see it all.

In this view, when you sort it, you'll still have to turn through the cards.

So, you'll need to sort the database to answer the questions that are on the worksheet.

So again, on the worksheet is a link to the new database you're going to look at, the countries database.

So choose which view to use, and sort the database to answer the questions.

So pause the video now.

Okay.

Hopefully you've got on okay with that.

So we'll now look at those questions together.

So the first question was, "Which country has the smallest population?" And we've got sort by, this is the form view, the card view.

So I can click on that, and I can choose population, and it's sorted at the minute from the most to the least.

And if I click on that, it'll go from the least to the most.

So the answer from the database is that Mexico has the smallest population.

If I go and look in table view, I can do the same thing.

So if you look, you can see that the populations are here.

It's still sorted in the same way.

So the answer to the first one was Mexico.

The next one to look at is, "Which country covers the largest land area?" So we've got the area here.

I'm going to sort it this time here.

So if I click on that, that's going from the least area to the most.

And then this is going from the largest area to the least.

So Russia contains the, has the largest land area.

I'll go back to the form again.

And we can just try again.

So we've got, "Which currency is last alphabetically?" So, if I sort by currency, then it's going from the last to the first, and it's Japan, which is the yen.

And if I click on that, it'll go from the first, which is the Canadian dollar.

If I go and click on table view again, you can see it.

We've got the currencies here, C comes first alphabetically.

And if I click to re-sort it, then we've got yen at the end, so that the Japanese yen is last alphabetically.

So your next task now is to go look at the worksheet, and you need to answer some questions about records and fields, okay.

We've mentioned several times we've gone through this.

So go look at the worksheet, and look at the questions that are on there.

Pause the video now.

Okay.

So we'll just look at those together then.

So firstly, we'll look at records.

So records in this view, this card view, or form view, and you can just see it kind of shows you behind, it's a stack of records.

Each card is a record.

And in this view, each of these is a record, and you can see them in a list.

You were also asked to look at fields.

So in this view, you can see these are all the fields.

So it's one record, and all the fields for that record being shown.

And in this view, all the fields are shown here.

They are the column headings.

So in this view, you're seeing all the fields, and several records at the same time.

So, in the last lesson you used a paper database, and in this one you've used one on a computer.

So I'd like you to spend a little bit of time now thinking about the two, and whether there's any advantages or limitations of one or the other.

So pause the video now and look at the worksheet.

Okay.

So we have the two, or I have a picture of each side by side here.

And hopefully you've thought of some advantages, or limitations, of both.

So with the paper one, I think you could lay them all out at once.

You could perhaps see more, you could pick them up and look at them.

With this one, you have different views, and you could click to see the different views.

In terms of sorting them, well, to sort these ones, we had to look through and read each thing, and work out where it came alphabetically, or whether it met the criteria.

On this one, we could simply click a button and it would sort it for us.

Okay.

So we have the two, but I think if you think back to sorting, I remember when I was sorting mine, it took 22, 23 seconds.

Sorting this one, we just clicked a button, it was sorted.

I don't think you could even time it, it was that quick.

So in this lesson, you've used the database on a computer to sort information and to answer questions.

You learnt about records and fields in a computer database, and thought about the difference between a computer database and a paper database.

So that's all for this lesson.

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See you next time.