{"id":201,"date":"2017-06-13T06:54:08","date_gmt":"2017-06-13T06:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/brennanpincardiff\/?p=201"},"modified":"2022-04-13T15:08:21","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T15:08:21","slug":"teaching-r-in-namibia-day-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/brennanpincardiff\/teaching-r-in-namibia-day-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching R in Namibia – Day One"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Namibia_crop\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As the sun rises in the bright blue sky, I can hear different birds, dogs barking and light traffic. The trees, cacti and the flowers brighten the generally brown landscape. I’m reflecting on yesterday’s teaching and the plans for today.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve come a long way to teach R<\/a>, an open source statistical programming language<\/a>\u00a0at University of Namibia<\/a>.\u00a0On Saturday, I flew over\u00a05,700 miles south to South Africa and then back about 700 miles to Windhoek, the capital city in Namibia. It took twenty four hours – but Mark, Dr David Gillespie<\/a> and I finally arrived.\u00a0I was invited by Dr Mark Kelson<\/a> to help with a\u00a0Phoenix Project<\/a> event – a three day R course.<\/p>\n

Teaching software often presents a challenge with\u00a0varied levels of expertise in the room. As I’ve experienced on other R training, we had one third complete newcomers, one third intermediate users and one third experienced\u00a0users. Preparing and delivering material to a diverse audience can be difficult. However, what I observed yesterday was the learners helping each other. The room buzzed with discussion. I saw people use new skills, share advice and hopefully, the start of a UNAM R community.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons, I teach is that I always learn new things:<\/p>\n