iNZight Insights in the beginning…

iNZight Insightsin the beginning… Whangarei PD Day May 6th 2013 Jim Hogan

My Goals Today • Have you gain confidence to explore this software • Make you aware of where to find resources • Help you appreciate when to use iNZight • Become an iNZightuser • Have fun being a learner again. What are your goals?

Plan of Nec Slides • Downloading and installing on Mac or PC • Basic history, ownership and use • Starting it up • Data and variables • Graphs (dots, bars and boxes) • PPDAC and Inference • Discussion of when to use (and when not to use) • PPDAC and “on the second day…”

Downloading and Installing • Download http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~wild/iNZight/, unzip and notice where you put it all. • To begin find the “START_INZIGHT.command” • Double click the ICON and way we go • Investigate this website!

iNZight History… • iNZighthas been primarily supported by The University of Auckland, Department of Statistics • with additional support from Statistics New Zealand and the NZ Ministry of Education via Census at School NZwebsite • Useless info…it is written in R, which is a subset of S a global used computer language for statistics. oh…

…designed for our schools • Initially designed for New Zealand high schools, iNZight now extends to multivariable graphics, time series and linear models. • A simple data analysis system which encourages exploring what data is saying without the distractions of driving complex software

Getting data • I suggest that you import .csv files • After • “conditioning” the data in Excel • Taking a sample • Getting rid of nonsense • Tidying and ordering • And so on. • Develop a system that works for you… .csv

Making a .csv file • In Excel select the file type you want.

Data and Variables • Categorical data are things like words. One does not add words. Telephone numbers are categorical data. The sum of two telephone numbers does not mean a lot. • Numerical data can be added and multiplied. Numerical data can be converted to categorical data. Why might we do this?

Dot Plots and Boxes • Rather easy to make • Drag some numerical data into the variable.

Bar graph • Drag some categorical data into the variable

PPDAC • Ask a sensible question • “I wonder if the weight of female trout in the Lake Taupo 1993 are heavier than the males?” • Why would I want to know this? Hmmmm…

ppdAc • We see…

ppdaC • And by any measure, especially the eyes, the answer is …

Conclusion • The female trout in the 1993 Lake Taupo are not heavier than the males. • The answer is not NO • The answer is not that there is no difference • The answer is not the males are heavier • ATFQ • The answer is as above.

A better question? • I wonder if the trout caught by FF are bigger than the trout caught by any other method. • Reason…I want to catch a big trout • Task, you answer this.

When to use iNZight • Discussion time…

When to use iNZight… • My view is • not before students are ready • that means • when they tell you how to • draw a dot plot and bar graph • draw a box and whisker and tell you everything about it • not before and can describe distributions using their eyes. REASON ----------------

Reason • ReasonThis is very powerful software and they will take the short cut and use it before understanding what it all means. So if you want to create a rod for your own back then show them how to use it. • Year 7/8 – never • Year 9/10 – only when they are multiplicative, know fractions and can explain that 25% of the data is in each of box parts. What min, LQ, med, UQ, IQR, max all mean. • Year 11 – Use deeply. Use any time as a teaching tool for visual stuff.

Let’s play and discover more questions • Hands on, get dirty! • Are there two species of dolphins in NZ waters? • What is your best approach to catching a big trout? • Time series?

iNZight Insights in the beginning…