Thinkfinity for 21st Century Learning

Thinkfinity and TIE are working together to deliver educational resources and training to all K-12 educators in South Dakota.

Despite the Internet's rapid growth and widespread presence in American culture, educators still have concerns about the quality and credibility of Internet content, the effective integration of Internet-based resources into a standards-based curriculum, and online safety. Additionally, teachers in particular simply do not have time to scour the millions of resources available on the Internet to find those that are appropriate for their classrooms.

Thinkfinity, formerly known as Verizon MarcoPolo, was created in 1997 to address these concerns by meeting the needs of educators through the development and delivery of top notch content and professional development. Over the course of the past 10 years, educators in all 50 states and the District of Columbia have been introduced to – and trained to use – Thinkfinity’s educational resources in their classrooms. The Thinkfinity site records an average of 3 million user sessions per month.

Thinkfinity resources are available free of charge at http://www.thinkfinity.org .

Content Partners

Leading national and international educational organizations, in partnership with the Verizon Foundation, create, review and approve Thinkfinity’s authoritative educational resources. Our Content Partners are The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, National Council on Economic Education, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, International Reading Association, National Council of Teachers of English, American Association for the Advancement of Science, National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian-National Museum of American History, our newest partner.

Educational Resources

Thinkfinity provides more than 49,000 rich, high quality educational resources for K-12 education including standards-based lesson plans, student materials, interactive tools and web sites that have been created or reviewed and approved by our Content Partners. Thinkfinity Partner sites house only content that is accurate, unbiased, up-to-date and appropriate for the classroom. Teachers and students may access lessons and resources directly from our Content Partner sites, or they may use the comprehensive Thinkfinity Search Engine . The Search Engine yields only educational results and houses both original Thinkfinity Partner created content and resources reviewed by Partners and educational experts.

Professional Development

In addition to rich content, Thinkfinity provides a scalable "train-the-trainer" Professional Development Program Thinkfinity Staff Trainers work with state-based Thinkfinity Nationally Certified Trainers and Field Trainers, who adapt the professional development program to their own state and local needs and curricula and deliver training to teachers. The Thinkfinity professional development paradigm and comprehensive training materials have earned the prestigious Seal of Alignment to the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) awarded by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). Educators surveyed after attending a Thinkfinity training session overwhelmingly say that they will "absolutely" recommend Thinkfinity to their colleagues.

Rollout Network

The Thinkfinity Consortium also includes a State Rollout Network to facilitate the integration of the Thinkfinity program into state, regional and local education systems. Rollout Partners manage and support the Thinkfinity program within their service areas in various ways: by communicating program information to their education communities; arranging and delivering training sessions and tracking training quality and progress against rollout goals; integrating Thinkfinity program information and resources into their own organizational Web sites; aligning Thinkfinity content to state standards; providing educators with additional supplementary resources; and keeping their management and stakeholders updated on the program.

Comprehensive Measurement

Comprehensive measurement is used constantly as a diagnostic tool to improve all aspects of the program. Thinkfinity's Rusticello, the program’s powerful professional development and measurement database, facilitates every aspect of the training process - from handling online training requests, logistics and rosters to follow-up surveys and reporting. Rusticello features extensive survey functions, including training surveys, content surveys and customized surveys. Thinkfinity staff and Rollout Partners regularly examine the data as part of their ongoing evaluation of the program to ensure that it continues to meet educator needs. Visit our Progress and Results section for more detailed information.