Technology Reflections 1/11 - 1/15

I decided to further investigate TinkerPlots. This seems like a version of Mini Tab, which I am somewhat familiar with from MATHS 221. I wanted to choose this software because I feel as though knowing more about this could benefit me in the future. When I went to talk to Mr. Roebuck about Todd and I sitting in on his class to learn more about this software, Mr. Roebuck showed me some of the printed sheets he made on TinkerPlots. I was impressed with how clear it was to understand his notes and felt that this is something that would be extremely helpful when teaching a probability or stats class.

I have yet to sit in on Mr. Roebuck’s class because he was going to be talking about the program on Thursday and would not have time for his students to download it and introduce it in the same class. Next week (1-19-10) is when he will be introducing it, and Todd and I will be sitting in on that class and also the next couple weeks. We want to get a great understanding on what can be done with this program, activities that can be carried out using TinkerPlots, and what kind of topics can be covered.

Later in the week I have found several lesson plans for the introduction of TinkerPlots to high school classrooms. The one that I could save can be found in my iLocker (https://ilocker.bsu.edu/users/agwolfe/BSU_SHARED/) titled "Teachers Guide for TinkerPlots". This guide gave suggestions on how to start an introduction project using TinkerPlots. This project seems like a small introduction to the program, but starts students off on their own using TinkerPlots. Seems like it would be a useful project to include in a TinkerPlots curriculum.