Statistical education software tools

"Some very practical applications, Autograph was fantastic!" 

Summary 

On the third day software that is available for both doing and teaching statistics at all levels was considered. A second sparkling session on using Autograph for teaching statistics and mathematics in schools was delivered by Douglas Butler, the software’s creator. Julian Stander and Paul Hewson presented separate sessions on using R in teaching at an introductory and advanced level, respectively. These sessions were very well received, with several participants declaring that they were motivated to go away and learn more about using R in their teaching. Doug Stirling, the creator of CAST (Computer Aided Statistics Textbooks), showed novel ways to teach statistics using his freely available electronic textbook resource. Afterwards there was discussion about how this resource could be dynamically linked to software for doing statistics, such as Minitab, R and SPSS. It was felt that such a link could create a particularly useful teaching and learning resource marrying teaching, learning and doing in one electronic environment.

Note The statistical education software day was organised under the auspices of the Higher Education Academy Maths, Stats and OR Network as part of the Network's aim to improve the student learning experience. In this case improving student engagement with statistics was through ensuring teachers of statistics are aware of the latest developments in software. 

1 Using Autograph to improve mathematics and statistical education in schools

Douglas Butler, Creator of Autograph.

2 Using R to Improve Statistical Education: Introduction to the R  Environment

Julian Stander, University of Plymouth

R is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics, which can be easily downloaded from the web. It is now widely used for all types of statistical applications. This session got colleaguies started with using R commands.  It was shown that all the material presented coud be easily adapted for use in a teaching context. The following topics were covered in an introductory manner:

• Arithmetic;
• Graphics;
• Reading in data from a variety of sources;
• Summary statistics;
• Linear models.

3 Using R to Improve Statistical Education: Building a learning environment with R

Paul Hewson, University of Plymouth

Now that R is established as an analytical tool of choice in many sectors, it is no surprise we are now seeing a growth in the development of applications which use R. Many of these are for pre-formatted analysis, but some place R functionality in the background of a more familiar interface. The session examined the use of Inference for R, a commercially developed tool which allows one to use R from Word/Excel and Powerpoint. This makes learning R like learning to use visual basic in a spreadsheet. The Sage program was also examined. This is a community-developed piece of mathematical software, but it provides access to R via a very friendly web-based mathematics workbook.

4 Using CAST to improve Statistical Education in HE and the workplace

Doug Stirling, Massey University, New Zealand.

Computer Aided Statistics Textbooks (CAST) is a free collection of e- learning books and associated resources for teaching and learning statistics. Interactive and dynamic diagrams were extensively used to explain concepts. In addition to introductory e-books and two advanced  e-books (on multiple regression and experimental design), CAST  contains a collection of interactive exercises and a set of applets  that can be used from within PowerPoint. An overview of CAST was given and its use in teaching discussed.

5 Making web-based and open-source statistics software work

Discussion by all participants