Hello,
I'm a graduate student very much interested in Machine Learning, Pattern Recognition & Artificial Intelligence. These subjects are just applications of great mathematical subject Statistics.
As an undergraduate, I've done courses in Probability and Statistics. We've used it in many other subjects. But sadly its still is very abstract to me. Its not just me, most of my friends are facing this problem. I'm good at mathematics. I do solve problems on statistics but the problem is I don't have feel of the subject. I'm unable to relate this to real world and solve some real world problems.
Just have a look at some animations on Principal Component Analysis: A layman's introduction to principal component analysis & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pnQd6jnCWk. They explain the concept of PCA in simplest possible terms. Now when I look at the mathematics of it. Things make sense. I wish some one had explained to me this way two years ago. :(
I'm looking for similar animations or any kind of multimedia.
Also, learning in this era is completely different. We have lot of tools (Opensource & commercial) that can assist us in learning.
What such tools are available which helps me in learning statistics in better way
I've gone through http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2039904/what-statistics-should-a-programmer-or-computer-scientist-know. It gives some excellent suggestions on books.