One of the many nice things about summer is the time and space it allows for blogging. And, after a very stimulating SRTL conference (Statistics Reasoning, Teaching and Learning) in Rotorua, New Zealand, there’s lots to blog about.
Let’s begin with a provocative posting by fellow SRTL-er Tim Erickson at his excellent blog A Best Case Scenario. I’ve known Tim for quite awhile, and have enjoyed many interesting and challenging discussions.
Last year I was awarded a Project TIER (Teaching Integrity in Empirical Research) fellowship, and last week my work on the fellowship wrapped up with a meeting with the project leads, other fellows from last year, as well as new fellows for the next year. In a nutshell Project TIER focuses on reproducibility. Here is a brief summary of the project’s focus from their website:
For a number of years, we have been developing a protocol for comprehensively documenting all the steps of data management and analysis that go into an empirical research paper.
Are you looking for a way to celebrate World Statistics Day? I know you are. And I can’t think of a better way than supporting the African Data Initiative (ADI).
I’m proud to have met some of the statisticians, statisticis educators and researchers who are leading this initative at an International Association of Statistics Educators Roundtable workshop in Cebu, The Phillipines, in 2012. You can read about Roger and David’s Stern’s projects in Kenya here in the journal Technology Innovations in Statistics Education.
Somehow almost an entire academic year went by without a blog post, I must have been busy… It’s time to get back in the saddle! (I’m using the classical definition of this idiom here, “doing something you stopped doing for a period of time”, not the urban dictionary definition, “when you are back to doing what you do best”, as I really don’t think writing blog posts are what I do best…)
The other shoe has fallen. Last week (or so) Tinkerplots returned to the market, and now Fathom Version 2.2 (which is the foundation on which Tinkerplots is built) is available for a free download. Details are available on Bill Finzer’s website.
Fathom is one of my favorite softwares…the first commercially available package to be based on learning theory, Fathom’s primary goal is to teach statistics. After a one-minute introduction, beginning students can quickly discuss ‘findings’ across several variables.
Very exciting news for Tinkerplots users (and for those who should be Tinkerplots users). Tinkerplots is highly visual dynamic software that lets students design and implement simulation machines, and includes many very cool data analysis tools.
To quote from TP developer Cliff Konold:
Today we are releasing Version 2.2 of TinkerPlots. This is a special, free version, which will expire in a year — August 31, 2015. To start the downloading process
Just finished a stimulating, thought-provoking week at SRTL —Statistics Research Teaching and Learning conference–this year held in Two Harbors Minnesota, right on Lake Superior. SRTL gathers statistics education researchers, most of whom come with cognitive or educational psychology credentials, every two years. It’s more of a forum for thinking and collaborating than it is a platform for presenting findings, and this means there’s much lively, constructive discussion about works in progress.
