Tinkerplots!

After working with a marvelous math program for the past week, I would definitely like to use it in my classroom. For the past four days I have spent 10 hours playing with this particular math program called Tinkerplots. It is absolutely amazing! There are different groups of data that can be displayed in different plots with the program. There is a plot where students can analyze all of the different multiplication facts and look at the similarities between them. For instance, the similarities between 5’s and 10’s on the times table. It is a very good way to make math investigative and fascinating. I also looked at data collected for the different weights of backpacks compared the the weights of children who carried them. My thinking was the higher the grade, the more the backpack weighed. I was correct for the most part, but the interesting thing I learned was that a child’s backpack is not supposed to weight more than 15% of their body weight. I changed the graph and looked at weight of the backpack compared to the appropriate backpack weight for each child. This is a great program to make children interested in math. I spend hours on the program learning things just through investigation, without being told. There is a button on the program that can instantly give the mean of any group of numbers. Students can also sort the data by gender or any category available. Some of the other data I looked at compared men and women and their times in the 100 meter dash in every year the Olympics had been recorded. From the different graphs I studied, I could see that the men have stayed about a second faster than women ever since the Olympics began. There are so many different things to look at with the program and most of the data sets than students can look at are already programed in. Students can also record data themselves and enter it into the program. This program is a wonderful piece of technology that every teacher should have the chance to have in their classroom. If you ever have the chance to explore Tinkerplots, please do because it was an amazing experience and I truly hope I can acquire it for my classroom!