Introducing 3D Visualization of Statistical Data in Education Using the i-Use Platform: Examples from Greece

Abstract

In the 21st century, the age of information and technology, there is an increasing importance to statistical literacy for everyday life. In addition, education innovation and globalisation in the past decade in Europe has resulted in a new perceived complexity of reality that affected the curriculum and statistics education, with a shift from content knowledge to competences. Moreover, the amount of data that can today be accessed on the Internet suggests that students can choose nearly any topic of interest to them for their work on, which can increase their motivation. Furthermore, new location - based technologies actively promote the power of digital spatial representation and geo - communication opportunities. So, the aim of this paper is to present an application of 3D visualization of statistical data in conjunction with regional spatial data from Greece, using the www services and applications in real time. This has been accomplished by modifying the code of an open source of educational software: the online platform iUse, in particular. Nowadays, there has been a clear shift towards Free Software/Open Source Software (FOSS) from users worldwide. FOSS has begun to play an important and decisive role in Greek education, as well. The examples which are taken from Greece are related to statistical data from various sectors of modern life. The spatial background used is the 13 Administrative regions of Greece. All functions and modifications implemented were made with FOSS.