For information about any of the four trainings listed below, please contact your local Teacher Center.

ThinkfinityNY and Beyond…

Thinkfinity.org is the cornerstone of Verizon Foundation's Literacy, Education and Technology initiatives. The goal is to improve student achievement in traditional classroom settings and be­yond by providing high­quality content and extensive professional development training. This free, comprehensive digital learning platform is built upon the merger of two acclaimed programs: Verizon MarcoPolo and the Thinkfinity Literacy Network. New York State Teacher Cen­ters and the New York Institute of Technology are responsible for the rollout of Thinkfinity in New York state. NYS Teacher Centers and our statewide network of Thinkfinity Trainers can provide teachers with customized content/grade­level specific professional development in order to effectively integrate these exemplary learning resources into instruction. In addition, NYS Teacher Centers have aligned over 3,500 Thinkfinity lessons to NYS Learning Standards, to the Performance Indicator level. To date, over 22,000 NYS teachers have been trained in the use of Thinkfinity resources.

Intel Teach Program

As the Intel® Teach Affiliate in New York state, New York In­stitute of Technology in partnership with the New York State Teacher Centers, provides professional development for K­12 leaders and educators. Teachers complete the program with a unit plan ready to use, fully aligned to state and na­tional technology standards.

Intel® Teach offers three courses, free of charge through NYS Teacher Centers. They are:

• Leadership Forum, which focuses on the importance of leadership in promoting, supporting, and modeling the use of technology in instruction
• Essentials, which exposes teachers to emerging technologies and effective practices in the classroom
• Thinking With Technology, which concentrates on three free Intel® tools designed to enhance critical thinking skills

Educational Enterprise Zone

The NYIT Educational Enterprise Zone in cooperation with the NYS Teacher Centers brings hundreds of live interactive sessions connecting schools and libraries to museums and cultural centers via web 2.0 and videoconferencing.

All classrooms can now have access to these exciting resources throughout New York state and the world.

For more information, contact your local Teacher Center.

Online Academy

NYS Teacher Centers offer educators statewide the opportu­nity to pursue their own educational goals anytime, any­where with quality, highly facilitated, standards­based online course work. Featured are classes in Instructional Strategies, Special Education, Science, Social Studies, Humanities, Math, Technology and ELA.

The NYS Teacher Center Online Academy (OLA) consists of totally Web­based, 15­hour in­service credit courses. They are offered statewide and locally all year long for teachers and other educational staff and adhere to the rigorous Standards for Online Learning.

View the total array of offerings - along with the Online Standards - at www.olacatalog.org.

For the current Fall 2008 schedule, click on the NYSTC Online Academy link at www.rockteach.org.