We recently learned that the Verizon Foundation will be changing strategy in 2012.

Over the past five years, the Thinkfinity program has provided free resources and professional development for K-12 teachers to enable 21st century classroom learning. In 2012, the Verizon Foundation will evolve its philanthropic strategy to provide comprehensive support to schools and education organizations. This shift will more closely align with Verizon's core company strength – technology.

As the Verizon Foundation implements this new strategy in 2012, here is what you can expect to change:

• The Thinkfinity Professional Development Program, through which free training has been provided, will be retired on December 31, 2011.

• The TIMS database, which has been the vehicle for managing the registration and tracking of Thinkfinity professional development, will go offline in February 2012.

• The Professional Development area in the Thinkfinity Community, which includes free resources for trainers, will evolve to include educator resources for technology-integration efforts.

• The creation of new mobile technology applications (for smart phones, tablets) for use in and out of the classroom

• Previously recorded webinars will be available on the Thinkfinity Professional Development Community.
• The Verizon Foundation will not renew any of their State Education Partner contracts. As you know, K12HSN was the State Education Partner for California. Our grant will end on December 31, 2011.

The Verizon Foundation will, however, continue to work with their current content partners. As mentioned earlier, the focus will be on developing more resources and more mobile apps.

The Thinkfinity website and all the content partner sites (Illuminations, Artsedge, History Explorer, National Geographic Education, readWriteThink, etc...) will be up and running, and adding more content.

We hope you'll continue to use and promote Thinkfinity's great resources.

K12HSN