In 1991, Key Curriculum Press introduced the mathematics community to The Geometer’s Sketchpad software and the concept of “dynamic geometry.” In the 35 years since, the program has revolutionized the teaching of geometry worldwide, at every level of education from primary school through graduate school. Vital to the success of Sketchpad has been the community of content authors who have created thousands of sketches and shared them with other Sketchpad enthusiasts. Now, with the introduction of Web Sketchpad, there are even more ways to create and disseminate your content for educational, non-commercial use. This page summarizes the options.

Create and Share Sketches with The Geometer’s Sketchpad

The old-school approach still works: Build a sketch with the field edition of desktop Sketchpad for Mac and Windows and share the file. Whether you’re new to Sketchpad or looking to hone your sketch-building talent, there are numerous Sketchpad resources to jumpstart your learning. The software includes a Reference Center and a Learning Center available from its Help menu. And The Sketchpad Repository YouTube channel offers over 30 hours of instructional videos ranging from introductory tutorials through advanced constructions webinars.

Create and Share Websketches with Web Sketchpad

With the development of Web Sketchpad, it is now possible to post interactive Sketchpad content online. There are a variety of ways to make and share these “websketches”:

• For demonstration models that do not require construction tools, start by building your sketch in desktop Sketchpad. Choose “Export Web Sketch” from Sketchpad’s File menu and export the file as html. You’ll receive a web page with your websketch embedded on the page and fully interactive. Host the html file on a server and share the link.
• For construction activities that students build from scratch, create the websketch in the Tool Library, where you can add tools as well as widgets for styling, hiding and showing, tracing, labeling, and deleting. Download your websketch as an html page and host it online. This video demonstrates the process.
• For construction activities that include pre-built objects in the sketch, build the sketch in desktop Sketchpad, export it as an html page, and upload it into the Tool Library, where you can add tools, widgets, and page controls. Download your completed websketch as an html page. This video demonstrates the process.
• For construction activities where you’d like to collect and review your students’ work, ask your class to download their websketches in json format and share their files with you. These jsons can then be uploaded to the Viewer, where they will appear together on one web page. This video demonstrates the process.

By testing the field edition of The Geometer’s Sketchpad and Web Sketchpad, you are helping us to improve them. Please contact us with any questions or issues that you have so that we may address them.