Torbay RTC: Filemaker - A Whole School Approach

Live blog from #torbayrtc

We live in a data rich environment but this raises some challenges:

• Management
• Accessibility
• Consistency
• Connectivity

The word database has some negative connotations but many of the exciting things happening now are database driven. iTunes is a database. iPhoto is a database. The web is a database!

FileMaker is a content manager. It takes the ease of use idea and tries to make content manager flexible, versatile, and visual. Manage, teach and learn - Filemaker can help with all three.

Bento is meant to be Filemaker for home use. Can be used by very young children and has a very cheap site licence. The presenter described Bento as: "Filemaker with no learning curve".

Bento lets you take different types of content and bring them together into the one place. Can be used to link content from iPhoto, iCal, iMovie…

Where does Filemaker sit in schools? Pupil use, such as a castles database and staff use such as showing database of photographs of children's work through the year. It makes it easy to collect and share information.

Presenter shared a tip on how to see what's important on a screen - squint at it. The important information should be the bit that still stands out.

Filemaker syncs with the iPhone and there are Bento and Filemaker apps for the iPhone.