SAS on an iPad in a Soccer Field: Testing Homework Limits

It has been pretty well established that I am the worst soccer mom in the history of soccer moms. Most of the games I miss because I am somewhere else. My children have told me that my autobiography should be entitled, “I was out of town at the time” because most of the stories of their childhood begin this way.

Having come back in town shortly before the game this weekend, I was unaware that it was a two-day tournament 2 1/2 hours from home and that we were supposed to have reserved the hotel weeks ago. Hot tip: If you get your reservation last minute and have the choice of a close hotel or a nice hotel, get the nice one.

I fulfilled my obligation. I showed up. During the time The Spoiled One played, I watched. During half time and the breaks between the games I was able to write a couple of blog posts and test out SAS Studio.

If you look at the picture above you might see that I was working in a field surrounded by mountains. Not the best situation for Internet access, which I had via the hotspot on my iPhone.

I was able to log on to SAS Studio with no problem. When I logged in on my iPad I had the screen shown above where I could just start typing my program in the code window.

To see folders, libraries, etc. tap the BROWSE link in the top left corner, as shown

You can tap any of the categories to bring down the list of folders, libraries, etc. You can tap on a file to open it.

The one problem I did have, and depending on your situation, it may be a severe one, was that I could not get any of the libraries to open. I wanted to open the sashelp library and see if I could run some tasks using an open data set. This did not work. It is very possibly related to poor Internet due to laying in a soccer field ringed by mountains. I tried it last year in a movie theater and I was able to access the libraries. In this case, as you might guess from the top photo, the Internet was barely accessible.

Next, I tried simulating a homework problem a student might have, just typing in some data and running the program.

I have a bluetooth keyboard I use with my iPad and it all worked fine. I typed in data, tapped on the little running guy and my program ran fine. You can see the results below.

To save it, I held down the home button and the power button simultaneously, just like any time you take a screenshot on an iPad. Then, I emailed that screenshot to myself, so here you have results.

My point is that a student could do their homework using SAS Studio in the middle of a soccer field on an iPad, as long as it did not require external files, which most of the homework I assign does not. They could then email the results to their professor, still from the (dis)comfort of the field.

This is useful to know for three reasons:

1. I travel frequently to areas where there is very limited bandwidth,
2. Many of the students in my online courses live in areas with limited bandwidth,
3. The Spoiled One’s team won their bracket in the State Cup, so it turns out that means they have more soccer games next weekend as they advanced in the tournament. This is not at the same field surrounded by mountains. It’s at a different field at the edge of the desert. Sigh.

Take-away points:

Your students should be able to use SAS Studio almost anywhere, even if all they have is an iPad.

This is doubly true if you don’t assign homework that requires accessing external datasets.

I’ll be able to review homework assignments for the course I am teaching next during the soccer tournament this weekend. (I really AM the worst soccer mom in the history of ever.)

—————— SHAMELESS PLUG

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