Thank you for your comments. As I said in an earlier post, I do believe that getting students familiar with the spreadsheet functions of Excel - sorting, copying, fill, formulas, etc. - may be the most worthwhile thing that I teach them. And, Excel is almost as integral to some of my research as a microscope is to others'.
BUT, Excel, particularly its graphics, was clearly designed for business applications. It may make fine graphs for a corporate presentations. But the first thing I always have to do is to tell my students to undo some of the silly defaults like gridlines and Chart Titles. And I'll send $5 to anyone that can tell me what is presented when I insert "Error Bars". (And yes, I know how to do it manually. But who would expect that the one-click version is nonsense and in order to do it right you have to make 6 clicks?) The bigger frustration for me is the number of versions. 2 platforms (Mac vs. PC) x 2 versions each and counting. Oh, and the latest Excel doesn't have the Analysis Toolpac. But the next one will! Great - another version I have to expect my students to have. Maybe Excel in my class is like Churchill's Democracy - it is the worst in the world, except for all of the others. But I have to try some of the others first. I have been asked to report my experiences back to the List, and I will try to do so in March. I am not doing any quantitative comparisons of students' experiences, but if anyone wants to think about this as a TIEE kind of study in the future, I'd be willing to listen. -Jeff *************************** Jeffrey D. Corbin Department of Biological Sciences Union College Schenectady, NY 12308 (518) 388-6097 *************************** -----Original Message----- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of Hamazaki, Hamachan (DFG) Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2010 3:46 PM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Graphing software for undergrad courses Whether or not we like EXCEL using for graphing and statistics, reality is that almost all people (business, academic, government, NGO, etc) use EXCEL for those purposes. Even those who use R regularly, use EXCEL for data entry and simple summary statistics. (How many of R users directly input data to R using "data <- c()"? ) I also know that many my coworkers took stats using R, but now most of them use EXCEL for data summary, graphing, and simple stats. In today's work environment, all graduating students must have fluency in EXCEL or similar spreadsheet programs. For this reason, I use EXCEL for my introductory stats class. Even they forget all stats they were taught, they will remember how to use EXCEL, which will be their benefit for job. If EXCEL is costly, then Open Office Calc is a better alternative. Almost similar (EXCEL 2003) interface and functionality, and free. Yes, some of EXCEL Stats calculation is very questionable quality in precisions, but many ecologists often ignore fundamental statistical assumptions: unbiased sampling, assurance of samples representing a population of interest, valid replications, no measurement errors, assurance of independent and identically distributed random variables, etc. Ignoring those issues will result in wrong estimates, even using R or other best stats programs. Toshihide "Hamachan" Hamazaki, 濱崎俊秀PhD Alaska Department of Fish and Game Diivision of Commercial Fisheries 333 Raspberry Rd. Anchorage, AK 99518 Phone: (907)267-2158 Cell: (907)440-9934 -----Original Message----- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:ecolo...@listserv.umd.edu] On Behalf Of malcolm McCallum Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2010 10:35 AM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Graphing software for undergrad courses Use R, it will do any graphs you need and you are giving them the opportunity to work with a legit widely used program that everyone should use. malcolm On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 11:26 AM, Corbin, Jeffrey D. <corb...@union.edu> wrote: > Hello Ecologgers - Does anyone have recommendations for alternatives to > Excel for graphing and/or spreadsheet applications in undergraduate > labs? I have finally decided that Excel's graphing is so nonintuitive > that it is not worth the waste of time to teach in an undergraduate lab. > > > > > Requirements: > > - It only needs to do very simple graphs - bar graphs of means > +/- SE for several treatments, regression, etc.; > > - I am very happy with SigmaPlot for my own research > applications, but I am looking for something (e.g. Freeware) that we can > install on dozens of Department computers without the licensing fees. > Also, may students complete assignments on their own laptops so having > something that they can install themselves would be preferable. > > - If it also has spreadsheet capabilities (e.g. sorting, > formulas, calculation of means and SE, etc.) it would be even better. > Could be a different program, though. > > > > While we're on the subject, any recommendations for free, but > user-friendly, stats packages for undergrad labs (t-test, ANOVA, > regression) would be helpful too. > > > > Thanks, and Happy New Year. > > > > -Jeff > > > > *************************** > > Jeffrey D. Corbin > > Department of Biological Sciences > > Union College > > Schenectady, NY 12308 > > (518) 388-6097 > > *************************** > > > -- Malcolm L. McCallum Managing Editor, Herpetological Conservation and Biology "Peer pressure is designed to contain anyone with a sense of drive" - Allan Nation 1880's: "There's lots of good fish in the sea" W.S. Gilbert 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, and pollution. 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction MAY help restore populations. 2022: Soylent Green is People! Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message.
