Clean code, well documented frameworks, integrated with easy to use content management systems. Above, a career-exploration web application written for young people with cognitive impairments, delivered via the Craft 3 CMS, written on top of Google’s Angular.io framework.
Chris Spence
Résumé, references and live portfolio available upon request.
Back in 2000, I majored in Biology and Environmental Studies at Williams College. An aspiring landscape architect, I found work with a noted period landscape designer doing a little bit of everything: feeding the horses, tending the greenhouse and gardens (which would become the Victory Garden on PBS for a spell), proofing audio for an NPR radio program, planting boxwoods at old homes, restoring historical photos for publication and even developing an interactive company website. To supplement my income, I found additional work tutoring and coaching football at a local high school. As it turns out, I loved the creative challenge of teaching more than feeding a gaggle of Canadian geese every morning, so I took it on full time.
During my seven years in the Massachusetts public schools, I found ways to apply the website and technology skills I had developed in my previous capacity to help scaffold my curriculum for kids on the margins. I particularly enjoyed coding interactive games that we’d play together on days before tests/quizzes. Alas, I found a new calling and applied to the Technology, Innovation and Education Masters Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2007.
I converted my experience at Harvard into a full-time career as an educational technologist & consultant. Over the last fourteen years I have developed more than 100 games, websites and apps for a variety of educational contexts and audiences. I’ve worked for sole proprietors, small businesses, non-profits, public schools, universities, state & federal agencies and international corporations. I have co-founded two startups, the most recent of which is quickly making a measurable impact in the world. I also return to Harvard every September to reprise my role as teaching fellow for T-522, a graduate course titled: Innovation by Design: Projects in Educational Technology.
I currently live in South Orleans on Cape Cod with my wife, two golden retrievers, rag doll, two beehives and 2010 Fatboy Harley Davidson. I love them all, and in that order. I also like to barbecue, make and play outdoor yard games, enjoy the occasional game of chess and the even more occasional attempts to drive our boat around Pleasant Bay. I run and take spin classes, but I don’t enjoy it. My guilty pleasures are 80’s hair metal and the reality show, the Curse of Oak Island. I’m not embarrassed to say so either.
If there’s a common thread in my story, it’s that I love making things and helping people. I’m always on the lookout for what’s next. If you fit the bill, and I fit yours…