Home > JavaSketchpad > About JavaSketchpad

About JavaSketchpad

What is JavaSketchpad?

JavaSketchpad (JSP) is software that lets you interact with—or publish—sketches from The Geometer's Sketchpad on the Internet. The Geometer's Sketchpad is a Dynamic Geometry exploration environment available for Macintosh and PC computers from Key Curriculum Press. (This JavaSketchpad site assumes you are familiar with The Geometer's Sketchpad. If not, you might want to learn more about the desktop software before exploring the JavaSketchpad site.)

You can use JavaSketchpad to share your geometry work (or your students' work) with people who may not have desktop Sketchpad or who use computers that can't access desktop Sketchpad (like most UNIX machines). You can use JavaSketchpad to distribute interactive, Dynamic Geometry activities and curricula over the Internet. Advanced users, programmers, and mathematical researchers can even use JavaSketchpad to add Dynamic Geometry visualization to other software or problem contexts.

If you have a Java-enabled Web browser, you might want to briefly visit the JavaSketchpad demo gallery for some examples of JavaSketchpad in use. If your Web browser is not already Java-enabled, visit our Tech Support FAQ to learn how to enable Java.

Many of the core ideas and the preliminary prototype of JavaSketchpad emerged from research funded in part by the National Science Foundation (awards DMI-9561674 & 9623018). Opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily shared by the NSF.

    Differences Between Sketchpad and JavaSketchpad

    If you are familiar with only The Geometer's Sketchpad, or only JavaSketchpad, you may want to know how the two applications are different, both from a user's perspective and an author's perspective.

    Creating and Publishing JavaSketches

    The following page describes options for how to create and publish your own JavaSketches.

    Applet Mechanics

    The following page contains some details on the mechanics of the JavaSketchpad applet.

    License Information

    You may freely use the JavaSketchpad applet in your own Web pages, provided you do so for non-commercial use only. Other permissions or rights to JavaSketchpad require a written agreement from McGraw-Hill Education; contact McGraw-Hill Education for more information.

      The Geometer's Sketchpad and Dynamic Geometry are registered trademarks of McGraw-Hill Education. Sketchpad and JavaSketchpad are trademarks of McGraw-Hill Education. Java is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Netscape Navigator is a trademark of Netscape Communications Corp. Macintosh is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. Microsoft Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp.