Homework 4
05/19/00The UCLA Statistical Calculator is a teachware tool on the web. It provides us various statistical calculators. Those calculators are very easy to use, provide clear tables and graphics. So an instructor can use them to demonstrate examples to students so as to help them to understand statistical concepts.
The UCLA Statistical Calculator classifies calculators according to what kind of program language they were written in, so it is convenient for users to use calculators according to their own computer. The program languages are Perl , C, PHP/FI, Xlisp-Stat, and Java.
The UCLA Statistical Calculator provides us various statistical calculators such as Power Calculator, SASculator, Regression and GLM Calculator, Random Permutations, Random Permutations, Random Permutations, Q-Q Plot Maker, RGB Calculator, etc. There are totally 20 calculators available that can be used to do calculations that are most important in statistics.
To use these calculators, one need just choose which calculator is appropriate and click on the name, then there will appear a window with several data entry boxes. Then one can type in or copy from somewhere else the data in appropriate boxes and click on the button of summit. Then the results will appear immediately. Using these calculators, the instructor can not only show the students the results but also explore the sensitivity of some parameters so the students could understand the concept thoroughly and soundly. In addition, some of them also give theory under the calculation, such as the Two-sample Calculator.
Let's see an interesting example of applying the calculators. Regression is a very important method in statistics. There are a couple of calculators dealing with regression. We choose Correlation and Regression calculator to do a regression on a sample data. 20 pairs of x, y were entered in the box. Then choose the option of regression line in the plot, then click on summit. Within a second, the answers are shown on the screen. There were summary statistics and the functions of the regression line and a scatterplot in the answers. Instead of typing in data, we can also entry data by browsing the local computer, e.g. data files in A: or C:.
Overall,the UCLA Statistical Calculator is a very helpful tool in teaching statistics. It is easy to use, just like a calculator, without the hassle of programming. But there are also some disadvantages about it. First, most of the calculators do not describe the theory they are based on. Second, if it could provide more examples, it would be better. Third, if the graphics were more colorful, it would be more attractive to students.