UMass Amherst Podcast Examines Tinkerplots, Software That Makes Data Analysis Fun for Kids

Nov. 20, 2008

Contact:

Ed Blaguszewski 413/545-0444

AMHERST, Mass. – The University of Massachusetts Amherst’s podcast series about breakthrough discoveries of campus researchers focuses this month on Tinkerplots, an innovative software program that turns data analysis into fun for schoolchildren.

This TechCast at UMass Amherst episode includes interviews with Clifford E. Konold, a research associate professor at the Scientific Reasoning Research Institute at UMass Amherst, and Justin Cotton, a mathematics teacher at a middle school in Holyoke. Episodes are posted at www.umasstechcast.org, where they can be downloaded to a computer or portable audio player. Visitors to the site also can subscribe to automatically receive new episodes of the podcast.

In a world overwhelmed with data, understanding how to analyze statistics—to discriminate between meaningful data and bias—is as critical as knowing how to read or count, Konold says. And just as we learn reading and reckoning as schoolchildren, today’s elementary and middle school students are learning how to analyze data. Tinkerplots is making data analysis exciting and fun to learn, he says.

Konold developed Tinkerplots with a grant from the National Science Foundation. A psychologist by training, he’s an expert in how children and adults learn probability, statistics and data analysis. When he teamed up with software designer Craig Miller, Tinkerplots was born. The program is a kind of construction set that sends students on an inquiry-driven journey into statistics and probability on the computer screen. They can think up questions to ask, organize the data they develop, design their own plots, and answer a variety of questions about group differences and trends. Tinkerplots was developed in the field, working with schoolchildren from towns near UMass Amherst.

That’s where Justin Cotton and his students at the Dr. William R. Peck Middle School in Holyoke come in. When Tinkerplots was being developed, Cotton’s students helped Konold do the field testing of the software. Cotton talks about how that worked to develop the software package and what the students got out of the experience.

TechCast at UMass Amherst is produced under the direction of the Office of News and Information at UMass Amherst in conjunction with CVIP. The program host is Francesca Rheannon, an award-winning producer whose work has been heard on National Public Radio, including WFCR in Amherst. The series is supported by a generous gift from UMass Amherst alumnus Lewis J. Geffen.

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