Chief Technology Officer
Nick is the Chief Technology Officer of KCP Technologies, and is also the software designer responsible for The Geometer’s Sketchpad®. As one of the founding members of the Visual Geometry Project at Swarthmore College in 1987, he was responsible for the design and development of all of the VGP interactive software. In this capacity, he formulated the Dynamic Geometry® approach that defines the Sketchpad experience. Moving with the software from the academic environment to the publishing industry, Nick directed Sketchpad product development at Key Curriculum Press from 1990 through 1998, when with others he developed Key Curriculum Press’ software department into a separate company, KCP Technologies, where he presently works. In addition to designing software, he is the chief programmer of several incarnations of Sketchpad, and he directs programming staff in other areas. Nick also acts as a software design consultant to KCP Technologies data analysis software group. He works with schools in conducting field-testing and software evaluation, and also represents Sketchpad professionally in research, curriculum development, and professional development contexts. He has been PI and senior scientist on Small Business Innovative Research projects investigating Dynamic Geometry’s impact and potential, and has written numerous articles on the subject.Recent Teaching & Visiting Appointments:
August 2003-present. Visiting Fellow, Division of Mathematics and Science Education, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan.
Summer 2002. Primary instructor and curriculum designer, Sketchpad Master Class, Mills College, Oakland, California (50 participants; week-long institute).
Winter 2001. Royal Bank Visiting Fellow, Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education Group, Department of Education, Queens’ University, Kingston, Ontario.
Senior Scientist
Bill is Senior Scientist at KCP Technologies where he leads the Fathom Dynamic Data™ Software development team. His experience includes software development, curriculum development, research into programming tools, teacher professional development, classroom teaching, and research on learning statistics. He has been principal investigator of several NSF/SBIR funded projects, most recently "Census Microdata in the Mathematics Classroom." Prior to working at KCP Technologies, he served as Educational Technology Director at Key Curriculum Press where, in addition to starting the Fathom project, he conducted research and development of materials to support implementation of The Geometer’s Sketchpad and led the NSF/SBIR-supported effort to start a professional development center.Bill's experience as a software developer began in 1978 at San Francisco State University working with Diane Resek to create curriculum and computer environments for Statistics without Fear, Computers without Fear, and Computers in the Classroom. With Resek, he co-authored the Mirrors on the Mind software series and was co-PI of the Math Worlds project and the Computer Curriculum Cadre project. His research with Laura Gould at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center culminated in the development of a Smalltalk-based authoring environment called Programming by Rehearsal. At the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, he led the team that developed DataRelator, an early hypertext relational database. Bill’s current interests center on developing software and curriculum to prepare students and teachers to make intelligent use of the data deluging our society.
Recent Teaching & Consulting Work:
2002–present. Consultant to Connecting Science and Mathematics Through Data, Epistemological Engineering.
2001–present. Consultant to Visualizing Statistical Relationships, TERC, a leading education research and development organization.
1999–present. Member of Tinkerplots advisory board, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
1993–present. Lead instructor for Sketchpad and Fathom Summer Professional Development Institutes, Professional Development Center, Key Curriculum Press.