[R] The use of R Commander for beginning students and newbies

[Ista Zahn]

Hi Tom,

I also teach R to newbies (materials at
http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/rtc/filter_by/r-0), and I've found
RStudio (http://rstudio.com/ide) a huge help, and much less
intimidating than the Windows GUI. File and object browsers,
integrated help window, syntax highlighting and code completion are
some of the features that students like. Not trying to discourage your
use of Rcommander, just thought I'd share my positive experience
teaching with Rstudio in case you have not checked it out yet.

Best,
Ista

On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 3:25 PM, Dr. Thomas W. MacFarland
<tommac at nova.edu> wrote:
> Everyone:
>
>
>
> In the last few months I've noticed an increasing number of questions to
> this list from students who are new to the use of R and who have limited (in
> any) local support on R and specifically support for R syntax.
>
>
>
> My text
> (http://www.springer.com/statistics/social+sciences+%26+law/book/978-1-4614-
> 2133-7) from last year was specific to the use of R syntax but given recent
> feedback I see that perhaps those of us who teach beginning students need to
> give a bit more attention to R Commander and/or other GUIs, to help students
> build on their confidence so that we can start them out with some
> immediately successful outcomes.  Then, with experience we can move them
> over to the use of R syntax, which is certainly far more robust.
>
>
>
> For beginning students, newbies, and any others who may be interested, I've
> opened for guest access an Elluminate-Blackboard video on the use of R
> Commander.  The URL follows and a password is not required:
>
>
>
> https://mako.nova.edu/webapps/bb-collaborate-bb_bb60/guest.recording.launch.
> event?uid=476978d4-00c4-488e-98a3-495201e17f5f
>
>
>
> The full video is about 1 hour and 20 minutes.  You can make the active
> screen (right side of the screen) larger by moving it around, minimizing the
> status column (left side of the screen).
>
>
>
> Best wishes.
>
>
>
> Tom MacFarland
>
>
>
> ----------
>
> Thomas W. MacFarland, Ed.D.
>
> Senior Research Associate; Institutional Effectiveness and Associate
> Professor
>
> Nova Southeastern University
>
> Voice 954-262-5395 tommac at nova.edu
>
>
>
>
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>
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