Are you an instructor in information management, business administration, or other management subjects? Do you teach courses in database management, ERP, CRM, business software design, business data analysis, or application of data tools? Do you run into the following trouble?
1) You work hard at preparing the lectures, but students don't see the relevance and quickly lose interest.
Database, ERP, CRM, production management, PSI applications all have to do with practical needs and actual business operations that students do not have firsthand experience with. If the students can only read off the textbooks, it won't resonate with them regardless of how much work the instructors put into giving an instructive lecture. Student response will be apathetic and course feedback will be poor. You will be heartbroken.
2) You believe in "learning by doing" and applying "real-life context", but can't find the appropriate tool for students to use to simulate actual processes and obtain concrete results.
If students can design their own simple ordering system and CRM template to experience the process step-by-step and get a feel for how their system functions in real life, it would make learning much more efficient.
But if the students are asked to start from scratch: programming in SQL and creating data tables, they would be stuck writing code the entire semester without having enough time to design a comprehensive application let alone savoring the act of conducting interviews and process design and experiencing other nuances of the process.
If the students simply use an off-the-shelf turn-key system and just write a report on it, they are again not engaged.
What can you do? There's actually an answer! The point of this post is to tell you that Ragic could just be the solution you are looking for.
For those of you who haven't heard of Ragic, it's an online tool that looks like Excel (spreadsheets), doesn't require programming, and allows you to customize your own database system. Just go to the Ragic homepage (https://www.ragic.com) to register your free account. Once you log in, you can create a "form" in the database that's similar to a SQL table. Once you've designed the form, you can create connections and implement more complicated business logic on it with the graphical user interface.
You can also go to Ragic's free template library to install templates for various business applications (e.g. PSI, accounting, production management) and create test data to take the templates for a spin. Whether it's creating forms, installing templates, adding data, changing designs, there's no need to write a line of code. All you have to do is drag and drop the different elements, input data, and you're good to go.
Because of its simplicity and user-friendliness, people without a technical background can leverage Ragic to create a business application on their own and customize it on their own. IT professionals can also use Ragic to cut down on development time and build the application they want in the quickest, most economic fashion.
For more information on Ragic, check out these slides:
Since Ragic is such a flexible, easy-to-use tool that affords quick development, a lot of astute instructors, after discovering Ragic, have found another application for it: Use it for teaching. Students can register an account and learn by actually creating various applications!
In the past, we've had instructors who asked students to learn how to design simple ordering systems with Ragic or practice how to design a production management system for enterprises so they can learn, through a hands-on process, the techniques for system design.
There is also a college professor in Denmark who has, for several years in a row, incorporated Ragic in his business management curriculum where he asks students to design CRM and other applications using Ragic.
Because Ragic is so easy to learn and has a short development time. A user needs only about a day to get a handle on the general functions and logic of Ragic. When students use Ragic to practice building databases, business information systems, or developing any application they can think of, Ragic allows them to focus their time and effort on the actual design of the application and quickly accumulating in-depth experience. Using a tool like Ragic for development makes designing and learning about databases a lot more fun and interesting.
Later, when we have the chance, we'll share with you how these educators use Ragic to teach and their insights from the experience. However, the point of today's post is not to talk about instructors who've already adopted Ragic in the classroom. Rather, we want to ask more teachers to join the ranks and make their courses more stimulating and beneficial for the students!
To encourage everyone to teach with Ragic, we will offer every student a free Professional account license for courses where Ragic is incorporated in the curriculum.
The instructor only has to provide necessary information such as the start and end dates of the school term and student e-mail domain name, and we'll provide the students with free licenses during the school term. Students will be able to learn directly with the full functionality of the Ragic Pro license.
Students can add unlimited users, sheets, and data entries during the free Pro licensing period. They can also install free templates and modify their design. Once the course has ended, the student account will stay active and students can choose to delete some of their sheets to keep using functions under the free license.
You can rest assured knowing that teaching with Ragic doesn't mean you need to spend extra course preparation time. We offer comprehensive online teaching resources, including:
1) YouTube channel for tutorials. Aside from short videos demonstrating single functions, we also have a one-hour comprehensive video course where we walk you step-by-step through each function and how to design a basic order management system.
2) A visually guided Ragic Database Design 101 course.
You can go to this link and click on "Download" below the slides to save to your computer.
In this course, descriptions of the most essential functions and applications of Ragic are organized into sections. At the end of each section are exercises that allow students to practice on their own or be used for evaluating student understanding.
3) A complete host of learning resources including design tutorials, user manual, knowledge base, and blogs. All of this is available once the student has registered a free Ragic account. After logging into the database, click the "Shortcut" -> "Learn Ragic" to access.
Click here to fill out an application form and provide relevant information. We'll get in touch with you to provide the necessary assistance.
Note that the free Pro license account is for educational use in the classroom only. For educational institutions that want to use Ragic for administrative needs, the license still needs to be purchased since it is for regular data management. For educational institutions that purchase a Pro license or above for five or more users, we offer a 30% discount.
For more information, please contact sales@ragic.com !
Category: What is Ragic > Learn Ragic