District/School Administration PK-16 Program Support
Educational Technology

Massachusetts Thinkfinity Partnership

Thinkfinity, (formerly known as Marco Polo), is a comprehensive program and online portal that provides teachers with over 55,000 educational resources, including standards-based, grade-specific, K-12 lesson plans and interactive tools and materials.

Through a Verizon Foundation grant to Lesley University and a partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Department is able to provide training to teachers to use the educational resources available from Thinkfinity. In addition to providing standards-based resources from the nation's leading educational and literacy organizations, this grant from the Verizon Foundation will provide:

• Professional development opportunities to classroom and preservice teachers statewide through onsite and online training
• Resources to create a Massachusetts network of Thinkfinity trainers
• Resources to validate the alignment of Thinkfinity resources with the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks

When Thinkfinity is used in combination with MassONE, teachers can create customized lesson plans incorporating Thinkfinity's cutting-edge resources. To create lesson plans, teachers should log into MassONE, click "Curriculum Tools," and then click "View and create lesson plans." There are links to Thinkfinity within the "Instructional Strategies" and "Materials and Resources" sections of the lesson plan template. Teachers can also view a tutorial on the lesson plan tool by clicking the help icon at the top of the MassONE screen.

Educators who are interested in learning to use Thinkfinity resources and/or applying to become a trainer can request an application by sending an email to April Graziano at aaj.graziano@verizon.net.