Thinkfinity
Thinkfinity
As summer time draws near and schools begin to close their classroom doors for the last time, it falls on parents to keep the education wheel turning. There is no limit to the resources on the Internet but often finding the right website can be daunting. Enter Thinkfinity.
Thinkfinity is a user friendly education site that is the cornerstone of Verizon Foundation’s literacy, education and technology initiatives. Their goal in developing this site was to improve student achievement in traditional classroom settings and beyond by providing high-quality content and extensive professional development training. They also allow parents to share the wealth.
Thinkfinity, formerly MarcoPolo, is a free website.
This site was designed in collaboration with associations who had already developed content for each of the subjects including
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Council for Economic Education
- International Reading Association
- National Center for Family Literacy
- National Council of Teachers of English
- National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
- National Endowment for the Humanities
- National Geographic Society
- ProLiteracy
- Smithsonian National Museum of American History
- The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The website explains that “Thinkfinity.org makes it easy for educators to enhance their classroom instruction with lesson plans, interactive activities and other online resources. Thinkfinity.org also provides a wealth of educational and literacy resources for students, parents and after-school programs. All of Thinkfinity.org’s 55,000 standards-based K-12 lesson plans, student materials, interactive tools and reference materials are reviewed by the nation’s leading education organizations to ensure that content is accurate, up-to-date, unbiased and appropriate for students. At Thinkfinity.org, you’ll find primary source materials, interactive student resources and grade-specific research lists to help you tailor materials to meet your needs.”
Using Thinkfinity is easy. I have had good experience with the language arts site, READ WRITE THINK but there are other sites that have excellent content that can be adapted for parents and children in the summertime.
The sites include ArtsEdge, EconEdLink, Edsitement, Illuminations, Literacy Network, Science NetLinks, Smithsonian’s History Explorer and National Geographic’s Xpeditions.
In Delaware, Thinkfinity is partnered with the Delaware Center for Educational Technology and they provide training through Denise Tuck who recently conducted a workshop at Cape along with Lori Roe.
This week on the Thinkfinity Parent page they feature a fully developed lesson that goes with the new movie, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. This is really exciting stuff that kids would love. There is quest, an interactive game that allows you to hunt for treasure using all kinds of reading and map skills. There are artifacts that inspired the movie and a backstage tour of the stars and characters explaining how they became part of the script. The actress Amy Adams discusses her role as aviatrix Amelia Earhart and director Shawn Levy talks about the ups and downs of filming inside the Smithsonian.
The IMAX version of the movie will be shown at the National Museum of Natural History and the National Air and Space Museum. There are additional resources for hungry minds.
Parents who love to challenge their children will find a wealth of resources at Thinkfinity.org.
