Learn insider secrets to successfully using MongoDB to personalize learning paths. Discover why coding boot camps are wise to include MongoDB in their curriculum as well as how it shapes the overall student experience.

1. TALE OF TWO USE CASES
Michael Roberts Jr
[sdcs] San Diego Code School

2. Michael Roberts Jr
SAN DIEGO CODE SCHOOL

3. SAN DIEGO CODE SCHOOL
8
WEEKENDS

4. TALE I
DATA TO OPTIMIZE THE LEARNER EXPERIENCE

5. TALE I: ED TECH
• Our problems are really hard
• Want to customize the learner's experience
• Know in near real time who needs help

6. CUSTOM PLATFORM

7. xAPI SPECIFICATION
• Previous standards - SCORM1.2 SCORM2004
• A new way of tracking learner activities
• Treat interactions more like learning experiences

8. STATEMENTS
1. Actor
2. Verb
3. Noun

9. DATA

10. THE PATH FORWARD
• Statements can record almost anything "I did this."
• History is personalized and portable
• Devices without constant network connectivity are fine
• Workflow can start in an LMS or be wherever the learner is

11. LMS vs. LRS
• Learning Records Store - log activities for analysis
• Learning Management System - host learning materials, the activity
producer
LMS LRS

12. WHAT POWERS AN LRS
• 2013 - identified MongoDB
• MongoDB backed implementations
• Easy enough to get them running locally to develop against

13. WHY MOSTLY MONGODB
• Can apply a flexible schema
• Exceptionally fast
• Easy to use
• Powerful Aggregation

14. VOIDING STATEMENTS
• Delete a/k/a what not to do
• You are supposed to "void."
• In the real world things get dirty
• If you can access the data, you can "clean" it

15. BY THE NUMBERS
• MongoDB could tell when students came and went
• MongoDB revealed how much time students spent coding
• MongoDB could give us the average time to complete segments of
content
750k
STATEMENTS
100
USERS
1
YEAR

16. REVEALING PATTERNS
• How much time people were really spending in the classroom or
coding
• Friction points in the curriculum
• Who needed support in real time

17. TALE II
IN THE CLASSROOM

18. WHY TEACH MONGODB
• Why we teach students MongoDB?
• Need to be able to contrast relational
• Teaching schema with Mongoose

19. FOCUSED ON DAY ONE
• Sometimes the tech/language will be used
• Often used in mixed DB environments
• MongoDB is challenging SQL

20. DISCOVERIES
Installing was easier for students
Running it caused few problems
Hosted solutions were economical
The defaults work brilliantly
“It just works!”

21. TEACHING THE SHELL
• It is intuitive for the students
• Syntax is more relatable to FullStack JS program
• Tasks like indexing, backing up, connecting are trivial

22. WHAT STUDENTS BUILD
• Continuous Delivery
• Principles of data security
• Making apps production ready
• Work with Native Drivers
• Practice with Document Oriented Model
6
PROJECTS

23. EMPLOYERS TELL US
• They want students with the ability to use SQL
• And, they like exposure to a variety of tech

24. TRANSFERALBE SKILLS
• Continuous Delivery and hardening apps
• Containerization
• Learning queries

25. SUMMARY
• MongoDB is great for activity tracking
• xAPI personalizes the learning experience
• Students quickly implement projects using MongoDB
• Real value in Learning Mongo Shell, Mongoose, and Loopback
• MongoDB gaining in the job market