Thinkfinity.com

Kathy Dubruvsky and April Graziano
November 3, 2008 @ 1:30pm

http://www.thinkfinity.com/
Formerly Marco Polo, Thinkfinity is a FREE online educational resource developed by content specialists, and is sponsored by the charitable arm of Verizon and some of the nations leading educational and literacy oranizations. This site is available to students, teachers, and parents.


Thinkfinity has 3 main goals:
1. To train classroom teachers
2. To develop a network of trainers
3. To align their resources to the curriculum frameworks

There are no membership fees, and it is accessible from school or home .
There are 4 main portals: Educator, Student, Parent, and After School.
Thinkfinity offers resources for Preschool through Adult Ed, but is primarily for K-12 .

On the Educator Portal, the homepage highlights
1. Specific current, relevant topics
2. A calendar tied to events
3. 21st Century Skills link

New initiatives being developed:
1. Separate entry points for educators, students, and parents
2. "My Thinkfinity" - log in to save resources and customize searches
3. Collaboration with Smithsonian Museum of Natural History
4. Thinkfinity Literacy Network ***** for Library Media Programs!
5. Interactive learning activities

Management Tools:
1. Evaluations
2. Literacy Network
3. Online courses - training for you, staff, parents
4. Sample partner site resources
5. Story mapping and organizers
Student work is displayed as you move through events
6. America on the move -
Online oral history
Gives instructions to students on how to perform interviews and gather info

Thinkfinity is provided for by the DOE (not promoted by...)

On the DOE website, under Educational Technology -- Teachers/Paraprofessionals

MassThinkfinity Partnership

You can link Thinkfinity to your homepage. This reliable, exciting, and easy to use resource is available for Library and Technology programs. The lessons are created and developed to easily be incorporated into current lesson plans. The hard work has been done for you...use and share Thinkfinity!