1. Welcome to Thinkfinity Middle School
We will begin with a quick look at a favorite resource of WV teachers, Thinkfinity. The Thinkfinity website is free and available to the world. You don’t even need an account.
Please click on the link and visit the Thinkfinity page on the WVDE website. The author of these pages is Mark Moore. There are some handy links to Thinkfinity on this page that we are going to look at. Of course, you can always access Thinkfinity directly by going to thinkfinity.org.
21st Century Special Educators: Leading the Change!
WVDE SETLA 2009

2. 1 minute
This is the main page for Thinkfinity on the WVDE site. The white rectangular box holds links to each of the Thinkfinity partners. The partners span the curriculum K-12 including fine arts. When you do a search at Thinkfinity you may search all the partners or search them individually. Thinkfinity allows for searches by topic, grade level and more.
WVDE 2009 SETLA

3. 2 minutes
Below the partners’ box are some links that Mark has provided for your convenience. We will be clicking on the Hot List, but before you do, take a look at the rest of the links. There is a link to the interactive CSOs. You can go directly to the Thinkfinity site by clicking on Search Thinkfinity. You can learn about training dates if you would like to become a Thinkfinity trainer and you can contact someone here if you have questions about Thinkfinity. Videos are training tutorials being developed for each Thinkfinity partner. The rest of the links are informational.
WVDE 2009 SETLA

4. 1 minute
Let’s all click on the Hot List.
WVDE 2009 SETLA

5. 1 minute
This is a list of teachers’ favorite Thinkfinity tools. Scroll down the page to the list.
WVDE 2009 SETLA

6. WVDE 2009 SETLA 5 minutes MIDDLE School:
This list is only organized alphabetically. It crosses k-12 and all content areas. Have participants scroll down and click on “Lemonade Stand” as an example of an interactivity. Have them try the activity.
WVDE 2009 SETLA

7. 1 minute
Have participants scroll to top of list. It is safe for students to explore the hot list, except that some of it may be beyond their skill level. It might be used to expand knowledge or remediate. You will want to create your own hotlist for your classroom and explore the amazing kinds of resources that are available at the Thinkfinity site. Have them click on Thinkfinity.org. Presenter will click on the red circle surrounding Thinkfinity.org in ppt. and go to the live site.
WVDE 2009 SETLA

8. 8 minutes
Thinkfinity contains sections of its website that cater to educators, students, parents and afterschool activities. It provides a detailed search engine. Demonstrate the search engine, making choices for keyword, subject, and grade. Demonstrate that one can choose type of resource and specific content partner. But leave those blank for your search. Click “go” and retrieve the search results. Point out the resource type key and the symbols in each of the resources. Allow participants to search until the bell. Ask participants to leave the computer with the ppt on its first slide up on computer screen when they leave.
WVDE 2009 SETLA