How to create the best Interactive R Language interactive learning platform from the opinions of the R community?

Question

R offers the breadth and depth of statistical computing beyond what is available in commercial closed source products. Nevertheless, R remains primarily a programming language for qualified statisticians and inaccessible to many. --- The R Journal Vol. ½ December 2009

Note: Name changed from Interactive R Language Online Learning Platform: CloudStat School 

As stated, R is the best tool and is a lingua franca statistic. But many people, especially my students, had difficulty using R.

I want to create an interactive R learning platform called CloudStat School .

The best way to learn R programming while learning.

In CloudStat School, you will see the console box on the left side on the left, and the lesson in the upper right corner. Bottom is an output field. Everything that you "run" in the console field will be shown as a result in the output window.

So, while studying notes, you can “run” R examples right away without opening other windows, software, or tabs. You can do this on the page.

I made a simple working prototype: Lesson 1: Overview of the R language and CloudStat School

The prototype is simply R Web integration hosted in the Pôle Bioinformatique Lyonnais in an iframe.

If many of you think this idea is great, I would start making a better version.

This is my current simple idea, I hope to get some feedback from you.

Many thanks.

Answer 1

It will probably be much more resource intensive and require more effort to create, but check this out: I found Code Academy to be a fun way to mess with JavaScript. Unfortunately, the site (for now) is available only for one language and launched at startup with closed source code.

The main problem is that Rweb (as I am studying now) does everything in batch mode, so this interpreted linear approach used in CA may not be able to be executed with it. If you created a similar application for CA for R, you would need to open an R session for each user, hence the lack of resource intensity described above. I hope this can be overcome, maybe someone will have an idea.

I hope you find this helpful, at least as inspiration for your endeavors. Wish you luck.

Answer 2

A few pointers that might help: Eloquent Javascript and CodingBat .

Eloquent Javascript is an “interactive hyperspiration” where students can edit and test examples directly in HTML as they learn Javascript. Perhaps you should take a look at ideas for CloudStat.

At CodingBat , Stanford professor Nick Parlant (for Java and Python) is exactly what you are trying to do for R students. The Creation Page is especially relevant.

The success of your CloudStat School will be in receiving crowdsourced contributions. To this end, I suggest you create 4-5 really good exercises with levels and tips, and then focus on the meta aspect of guiding others to create R exercises for you. Provide instructions for creating tooltips, tests, code, and tags. You can even consider assigning the task of creating new exercises as intermediate / final projects for your R students for extra credit.

Hope this helps and good luck.

Answer 3

Typically, there are two methods of teaching R, one step at a time, for example, what CloudStat School does, as well as other books and R Language websites. This is good, especially for those (a beginner) learning R without a specific purpose.

Another learns through problems. When you encounter specific problems, you need certain functions, you are forced to study this. Instead of starting from scratch, the best way is to study examples. This work is even for experienced R. users.

Since we want to create the best interactive learning platform Interactive R Language, we need to add as many analysis / learning examples as possible. If you need to get some ideas to do a statistical analysis with R, there is a place that you will visit first. :)