''TinkerPlots'' is

exploratory data analysis In statistics, exploratory data analysis (EDA) is an approach of data analysis, analyzing data sets to summarize their main characteristics, often using statistical graphics and other data visualization methods. A statistical model can be used or ...

and modeling software designed for use by students in grades 4 through university. It was designed by Clifford Konold and Craig Miller at the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a public land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system and was founded in 1863 as the ...

and is currently published by Learn Troop. It runs on

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...

or later and Mac OS 10.4 or later. The program allows users to enter their own

data Data ( , ) are a collection of discrete or continuous values that convey information, describing the quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted for ...

, to import them from other applications or

the Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond IT specialists and hobbyists. It allows documents and other web ...

, or to generate them using a sampling engine. The program also comes with 50 multivariate data sets. Using TinkerPlots, students can make a large variety of

graphs Graph may refer to: Mathematics *Graph (discrete mathematics), a structure made of vertices and edges **Graph theory, the study of such graphs and their properties * Graph (topology), a topological space resembling a graph in the sense of discre ...

, including those specified for middle school in Common Core State Standards for Mathematics But rather than making these graphs directly using commands, students construct them by progressively organizing cases using basic operations including “stack,” “order,” and “separate.” Responding to these operations, case icons animate into different screen positions. The interface was based on observations of people organizing “data cards” on a table to make graphs to answer specific questions Innovations of TinkerPlots include using a superimposed color gradient to detect

covariation In probability theory and statistics, covariance is a measure of the joint variability of two random variables. The sign of the covariance, therefore, shows the tendency in the linear relationship between the variables. If greater values of one ...

in two numeric attributes and a “hat plot,” a reformulated and generalized version of the

box plot In descriptive statistics, a box plot or boxplot is a method for demonstrating graphically the locality, spread and skewness groups of numerical data through their quartiles. In addition to the box on a box plot, there can be lines (which are ca ...

. The latest version is 3.0.37. This version does not have substantively different features from versions 2.1, 2.2 or 2.3, but is a complete re-write in a code sense, and has a number of bug fixes and enhancements to remain compatible with the latest versions of Windows and MacOS.

References

Additional References

*Bakker, A., Derry, J., & Konold, C. (2006). Using technology to support diagrammatic reasoning about center and variation. In A. Rossman & B. Chance (Eds.) ''Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Teaching Statistics'' (ICOTS)

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...

. Salvador, Bahai, Brazil, July 2–7, 2006. * * *Konold, C., & Lehrer, R. (in press). Technology and

mathematics education In contemporary education, mathematics education—known in Europe as the didactics or pedagogy of mathematics—is the practice of teaching, learning, and carrying out Scholarly method, scholarly research into the transfer of mathematical know ...

: An essay in honor of Jim Kaput. In L. English (Ed.), ''Handbook of International Research in Mathematics Education'', (2nd edition). New York: Routledge. * *Rubin, A., Hammerman, J., & Konold, C. (2006). Exploring informal inference with interactive visualization software. In A. Rossman & B. Chance (Eds.) ''Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Teaching Statistics'' (ICOTS) CD-ROM. Salvador, Bahai, Brazil, July 2–7, 2006.

Educational Materials using TinkerPlots

*Konold, C. (2005). ''Exploring Data with TinkerPlots''. Key Curriculum Press, . Contents: Getting Started, Learning TinkerPlots, Teaching with TinkerPlots, Activities, Activity Notes

*Brodesky, A., Doherty, A., & Stoddard, J. (2008). ''Digging into Data with TinkerPlots.'' Key Curriculum Press, 225 pp. . Contents: (1) Comparisons, Distributions, and Line Plots: Exploring Data about Cats, (2) Comparisons and Boxplots: Investigating Data about Middle-School Students, (3) Comparisons using Formulas: Investigating Data about Signatures and Words, (4) Measures of Center and Histograms: Analyzing Safety Data, (5) Relationships between Attributes and Scatter Plots: Investigating Sports Data

* Walsh, T. (2009). ''The Survey Toolkit: Collecting Information, Analyzing Data, and Writing Reports.'' Contents: Choosing a Research question, Research Question, Developing and Giving the Survey, Analyzing Survey Data, Sharing Results. 112pp.

* TinkerPlots Instructional Movies (2010). These 10 short movies where developed by th
Statistics Education Research Group
in 2010, and published with TinkerPlots, in QuickTime and AVI format. Titles: TinkerPlots Basics, Adding Data, Making Common Graphs, Comparing Groups, Exploring Relationships 1, Exploring Relationships 2, Building a Data Factory, Simulating Group Differences, Probabilities Simulation, Creating Sample Space

* TinkerPlots ''Workshop Guide'' (2007). {{ISBN, 978-1-55953-961-6

* TinkerPlots ''Walkthrough Guide'' and ''Quick Reference Card'' (included i
Instructors Evaluation Edition
.
Free TinkerPlots Activities and Resources on Key Curriculum Website

Free TinkerPlots Activities and Resources on University of Massachusetts Website

External links

TinkerPlots 2.3 publishers web site
at Learn Troop
TinkerPlots 2.2 publishers web site
at

TinkerPlots 2.1 publishers web site
at Key Curriculum Exploratory data analysis Plotting software Educational software