User:Srylesmor

TinkerPlots is exploratory data analysis software designed for use by students in grades 4-8. It was designed by Clifford Konold and Craig Miller at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is published by Key Curriculum Press. It runs on Windows 98 or later and Mac OS 10.1 or later. The program allows users to enter their own data or to import them from other applications or the Web. The program also comes with 40 multivariate data sets.

Using TinkerPlots, students can make a large variety of graphs, including those specified in NCTM’s Principles and Standards for School Mathematics for middle school. 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 two numeric attributes and a “hat plot,” a reformulated and generalized version of the box plot.

Critical acclaim

 * Parents' Choice Silver Honor, 2005
 * Technology & Learning's Award of Excellence, 2005

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. Salvador, Bahai, Brazil, July 2-7, 2006.
 * Friel, S. (2002). Wooden or steal roller coasters: What’s the choice? New England Journal of Mathematics, 34, 40-54.
 * Hoyles, C., Bakker, A., Kent, P., & Noss, R. (2007). Attributing meanings to representations of data: The case of statistical process control. Mathematical Thinking and Learning, 9(4), 331-360.
 * Konold, C., & Lehrer, R. (in press). Technology and mathematics education: 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.