Thinkfinity

Thinkfinity.org provides a wealth of enriching, interactive content for the classroom. And it's free.

Math teacher Christy Wrede was looking for solutions.

Like many of her colleagues across the country, she fits workshops and seminars into an already impossibly busy schedule to find ways of incorporating new technology into her classroom. Searching the Internet, however, is just not a viable means for helping the 6th and 8th grade special education students she teaches at Carteret Middle School outside of Newark, New Jersey.

“You get a million results and half of them aren’t usable”, she said.

At a workshop she attended in 2007, Wrede discovered Thinkfinity.org — the Verizon Foundation’s free Web site of education resources and professional development. This Web site was different from anything she had seen before.

Created by leading experts in education, Thinkfinity.org offers Wrede “quality material that you can use in the classroom.” The content on Thinkfinity.org — which is provided by 11 premier education organizations in the United States (see list of content partners page 24) — meets national and state standards.

Wrede is among more than 250,000 teachers from all 50 states and the District of Columbia who have been trained to use this award-winning, nationally recognized Web site since 1997. It offers more than 55,000 free standards-based resources to anyone with an Internet connection. These resources include K-12 lesson plans, literacy assessment tools and interactive learning materials.

Thinkfinity.org also includes a comprehensive professional development series that prepares educators to incorporate its resources into their instructional settings.

The Verizon Foundation’s commitment is to make it the most useful and trusted source for educational resources on the Internet. Improvements slated for 2008 include a remodeled, easier-to-navigate Web site, Spanish-language content, and after-school and home programs.