Like many SAS Global Forum attendees, I took the opportunity to attend several speaker presentations, spend time at the poster session, and visit the Demo Hall each day. The activities I attended did not disappoint, and the hands-on workshop I had been looking forward to was no exception.
I have to admit, I’m a huge fan of hands-on workshops, and SAS Enterprise Guide with SAS OnDemand for Academics: Everything You Need to Know After “It’s free” was one of the first things I put on my list. SAS OnDemand for Academics is an online delivery model for SAS software. It is free to professors and their students for use in their courses. Dr. AnnMaria De Mars taught the hands-on workshop to give educators an opportunity to learn about the offering, gain some experience using it, and share her experiences teaching with it.
I’ve attended many hands-on workshops over the years, and I tend to go in with the mind-set that it’s all about playing with the software. So I have to say, this workshop gave me far more than I had considered. Right up front, the objective stated that this was about making mistakes before your students do. She encouraged us to have fun and take the “let’s find out” approach to teaching statistics.
It wasn’t just about taking really clean data and selecting the correct options in the proper sequence. In fact, while we were exploring the Characterize Data task, she discussed the importance of not always using clean data and of having students check their data since many students are not skilled at working with dirty data
The workshop definitely covered all of the basics and was the perfect balance of “how to” and “teaching tips”. If you were not fortunate enough to attend the hands-on workshop in person, you can find Dr. De Mars paper in the online proceedings for SAS Global Forum 2012.
If you are already teaching with SAS Enterprise Guide, or will be, and are looking for teaching materials, you will find free course materials available from the SAS Global Academic Program.
4 Comments
What a nice post. It was nice to meet you, too. It was also nice to have at least one person at SAS Global Forum who was shorter than me.
Thank you both! Andy, I really appreciate your kind words. It truly was a GREAT conference! There were so many wonderful opportunities and I enjoyed trying to squeeze in as many as possible.
I had the pleasure of sharing a few quiet moments to talk with Ms. Petlick while we were in Orlando. She is so dedicated to making sure that the students are having a good conference that I'm surprised she was able to find time to make sure that SHE had a good conference, as well!
I agree with you Andy; she is an amazing woman. SAS is really fortunate to have such dedication. Julie and I have worked together for more than a year, but Monday night was the first chance we had to meet face-to-face. She is a joy to work with.