These multi-platform interactive projects may contain music, text, graphics, video and animation. Using the visual tools, kids can see their data as Venn diagrams, histograms, cross-tabulations, scatter plots and box plots at the click of a mouse. They can also run data through a full range of predefined operations, or create their own. You can import any tab-delimited data file into the program, but it also comes with sample data sets and activities. My favorite of these provides groups of kids with a database of objects found at different levels of an archeological site.
Students then analyze the data to report on the lives of the site's residents during different eras.
Tabletop Junior is as playful and mathematically rich as Tabletop, but it's designed for elementary school students. Both come in the same package. Users design a program, download it to the brick via infrared technology, and watch as their robotic creation carries out their instructions. Students can use the visual interface at a variety of levels. Engineering, math, science and computer science come to life in a hands-on context.