Applets for Instruction

Some Neat Applets

The Histogram Applet

This shows the effects of changing the bin size on the appearance of data from the Old Faithful Geyser. Instructions are included about how to use the applet on your own dataset. Written by Webster West at the University of South Carolina

The Sampling Distribution Applet

This applet nicely takes samples from the normal or uniform distributions, as well as from a skewed distribution or from a user-made distribution to show the sampling distributions of various statistics. Included are the mean, median, variance, standard deviation, and range.

The Correlation Coefficient Page

A clever way to change the correlation coefficient on the fly, and watch the effect on a scatterplot.

The Correlation Guessing Game

Four plots with different correlations are presented, and the player must match the given values with the plots. The interesting twist is that a worldwide Top 20 of the most correct choices in a row is kept.

The Regression by Eye Applet

Do your best to minimize the squared error by drawing the correct regression line through a nice normal cloud.

The Regression Outlier Applet

Shows the effect of adding an outlier to an otherwise nearly perfectly fitting regression.

The Normal Approximation to the Binomial Applet

Shows how well the normal approximation works. Warning! This seems to crash Internet Explorer regularly!

The Confidence Interval Applet

Show how coverage works for confidence intervals.

The Let's Make a Deal Applet

Illustrates the problem of switching doors when shown a goat.

The Brownian Motion Applet

This shows off the zooming property of Brownian Motion (the self-similar property). Shows how kinky a continuous curve which is not differentiable anywhere must really be!

Repositories and Link Sites

Robin Lock teaches Statistics at the St. Lawrence University, and maintains a nice page of links to web sites of importance in teaching statistics. Be patient with the site, because it sometimes takes time to load.

The Rice Virtual Lab ontains an on-line text, probability applets, demonstrations, case studies, and some analytic tools.

Webster West at the University of South Carolina has written some dandies.

The GASP (Globally Accessible Statistical Procedures) page links to many of the applets listed above.

Duke University has links to many applets from a variety of sources.

You'll notice as you visit these sites that the links above to the educational applets are mentioned quite often!