SBIR-STTR Award

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project builds on the success of The Geometer's Sketchpad, a piece of educational software that has had an important impact on the teaching and learning of mathematics in secondary schools. The research will prototype a next generation of this software--3-D Sketchpad--an integrated exploratory environment for creating, analyzing, and investigating three- and higher-dimensional mathematics. The Geometer's Sketchpad allows users to carry out geometric constructions using standard 2-D tools and transformations (Euclid's compass and straightedge tools augmented by reflection, rotation, and dilation). At any time, users may drag one or more objects in the sketch using the computer's mouse, and all of the other objects will dynamically adjust their position and size to maintain the constructed relationships. This simple idea has profound implications in the teaching and learning of mathematics. Generalized to three dimensions, the revolution in geometry education brought about by Sketchpad has the opportunity to broaden the geometry curriculum and to extend its relevance to other areas in mathematics and science. The objectives of this Phase I research project are to design and prototype critical elements of 3D Sketchpad and to describe and prototype the support materials that will ease its introduction into classrooms. The Geometer's Sketchpad has enjoyed substantial commercial success. If the proposed research meets its goals, the resulting software and support materials will have even greater application in middle schools, secondary schools, and colleges.

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project from Key Curriculum Press, Inc. will leverage recent understanding of Dynamic Geometry software to an emerging new category of classroom technology--handheld computers--that will greatly lower barriers to the financial, physical, and intellectual accessibility of technology across the 6-12 mathematics curriculum. The starting point for the project is The Geometer's Sketchpad (Trademark), one of the most highly regarded and commercially successful software systems presently available for math education. Reinventing Dynamic Geometry for handheld platforms will dramatically change the shape of student interactions with technology, moving these interactions away from isolated moments of technocentric computer activities conducted in a computer lab and toward a deeply-integrated learning process, wherein technology supplements and extends student learning in routine practice both inside and outside the classroom. These new contexts for technology-assisted learning in turn place new requirements upon-and create new opportunities for-educational software design. The proposed combination of an innovative hardware/software device with classroom curriculum and professional development materials to support its use will fundamentally change how teachers and students learn and do mathematics. The commercial success of The Geometer's Sketchpad development materials provide another proven avenue of commercial sustainability for the eventual products of the proposed research. demonstrates the commercial potential of Handheld Geometer's Sketchpad. The new device will have even more utility for the geometry classroom than the current incarnation of The Geometer's Sketchpad; and, if the research is successful, it will have ready application throughout the 6-12 mathematics curriculum. The enthusiastic response of teachers, students, and researchers to prototypes of software and curriculum produced during Phase I indicates that the re will be high level of teacher support. Curriculum and professional development materials provide another important avenue of commercial sustainability for the eventual products of the proposed research.