[R-sig-teaching] Who is the list for?

[Robert W. Hayden]

Forwarded message:
> From: Albyn Jones <jones at reed.edu>
> 
> You should post basic R questions to the R-help list;
> this list is intended for discussion of the use of R in
> teaching.

Albyn, could you tell us more about what is on that list?

Some time ago I raised the possibility of an email list for those who
want to use R in teaching introductory courses.  The idea was passed
on and within a couple days this list was born.  (I assumed causality,
but it may have been coincidence;-)  I would have made the list open to
any question from anyone using R in an introductory course.  Perhaps
there is a problem due to bimodality in the potential audience.  Some
are old hands at R and now want to use it in the classroom.  Others
may have never used it before and are now trying to teach with it.  I
am not on the R-help list but wonder how much of the content there
overlaps an introductory statistics course?  Or how much would be over
the head of a beginner?  (I think most of the R documentation is well
beyond the level of an introductory course, and pretty overwhelming
and incomprehensible to a beginner, so I am hoping there is SOME place
where beginners can get simple answers to simple questions without
becoming Unix gurus or programmers first.)

For anyone wondering why a non-R-guru such as myself might be on this
list (or have suggested its creation)...  I teach online in a context
where we cannot buy a site license to provide each student with
software.  They have to either use whatever their employer provides
(if anything), or pay for software out of their own pocket, normally
at full single-copy prices.  R is attractive because it is free.  It
also makes sense because our introductory courses (at least
originally) only exist to prepare students for more advanced courses
where R is preferred for its power or programmability.  So, having
created the introductory courses themselves, I then created student
manuals for Minitab (because I already knew it), Data Desk (because it
comes with the textbook), and R (for reasons already given).  In
creating the R materials, I encountered others trying to get started
with R while using it in an introductory course, and hence this list.

------->  First-time AP Stats. teacher?  Help is on the way! See

 http://courses.ncssm.edu/math/Stat_Inst/Stats2007/Bob%20Hayden/Relief.html
	    
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