The concepts of median and mean are key to understanding statistics, and this rather novel applet from the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) Mathematical Sciences Digital Library is quite a find. The applet was created by Kady Schneiter of Utah State University and it consists of two windows. In the first, the user fills in a grid to create a distribution of numbers and to investigate the mean and median of the distribution. The second window enables users to test their knowledge about the mean and the median. In this window, the applet will display a hypothetical distribution and an unspecified marker. The user will then determine whether the marker indicates the position of the mean of the distribution, the median, both or neither. It's a well-designed instructional tool, and one that can be used in the classroom with ease.
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