Thinkfinity+Presentation

toc Presenter: Ann Johnston Time: 11:30 - 12:15 Room: Auditorium Contact: amjohnston@iu12.org

__Description of Presentation__
[|Thinkfinity] is an online web portal (sponsored by Verizon) that is a one-stop shop for K - 12 educators, students, and parents looking for educational resources. It is FREE, easy to use, has no login or password, and offers over 55,000 resources including lesson plans, maps, worksheets, interactive games, calendars, video clips, audio clips and many others. Thinkfinity is partnered with nine of the most prestigious educational associations in the nation and all materials submitted for acceptance in Thinkfinity must first be reviewed and approved by a panel of educational experts.

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__Highlighted sites__
[|Literary Glossary] [|Literary Graffiti] Resource in a [|lesson] [|Beowulf] [|Character Traits: "To Kill a Mockingbird"] [|Seeing Sense in Photographs & Poems] [|Subject-verb agreement]

__Thinkfinity Content Providers for English/Language Arts__
[|ReadWriteThink] [|EDSITEment] [|ArtsEdge]

__Additional Resources__
Session 1 ReadWriteThink with Marge Runkle media type="custom" key="2967590" media type="custom" key="2967606"

Live Blogging Thinkfinity has over 55,000 resources. It is a FREE resource, no log in procedure. There are different portals for you using it and students using it. The session began with a poll. All the information for this presentation has been put on this wiki and can be shared with other teachers. This site has this years and last years resources. Thinkfinity is marco polo but combined with verizions literacy network and is now THINKFINITY. There are a number of highlighted sites noted on the wiki from this presentation. Thinkfinity has a series of 8 different content providers. Edsitement is one of them. Edsitement has specific literay terms with lesson plans available under those literary terms. Another site that is more student oriented is Literary Graffiti. In this site users have the option to draw and then write text. It is a very simple step by step tool. Once in the tool, the user has 4 blocks to input information. A literary Graffiti box, summary box, explanation box and significance of the graffiti to the text box. Once the work is finished the user can print out their work. Read-write-think is another tool that can be accessed. You can search by content providers: ArtsEdge, EconEdlink, Edsitement. Illuminations, Literay Network, Read-Write-Think, Science NetLinks, Smithsonian'sHistory Explore, and Expeditions. Of these sites Edsitement, Literary Network, Read-Write-Think and ArtsEdge are the 4 that relate most relevantly to Language Arts. When doing a search, anytime you see an S inside a star within the search that means that there are standards for the states available for that particular lesson. Thinkfinity matches the 21st Century skills framework, which is broken into a 4 part bridge. Core subjects and 21st Century Themes, Learning and Innovation Skills, Information, Media and Technology Skills and Life and Career Skills.

Edsitement is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. There are lessons and websites available through this link. Within Thinkfinity you have the ability to search globally across all content providers or you can select a specific provider and search just within that provider. Thinkfinity has a tremendous amount of already prepared lessons. Within Edsitement, upon selection a lesson, each lesson shares all subject areas that the lesson addresses. In addition, it also lists the skills that go with the lesson (usually 21st century skills).

In the Read Write Think site you will be able to get lessons that show how to integrate the various tools available within a lesson. Thinkfinity does allow for cross curricular and cross disciplinary activities. It was shared by a user at one of the districts that they recommend for their teachers to search globally across all the sites because of the numerous cross curricular connections. There are book lists within Thinkfinity. These lists include books recognized by the International Reading Association and were recognized as one of the top young adult books for specific years. Under resources, students can go to homework help, essay map, atlas maps,