For Immediate Release
August 3, 2005
Contact: Janelle Williams
317.816.9760
jwilliams@hickmanassociates.com Networks Financial Institute Partners with Indiana Humanities Council’s smartDESKTOP Program
(Indianapolis, Ind., August 3, 2005) – Networks Financial Institute at Indiana State University has partnered with the Indiana Humanities Council and its smartDESKTOP program to provide Indiana’s kindergarten through high school teachers the tools and resources they need to teach financial literacy education in their respective classrooms.
Through smartDesktop, educators can access top curricula that have received the “NFI Approved” accreditation. “NFI Approved” identifies the highest quality, standards-based relevant financial literacy materials for use in the classroom and reserves this special designation for only the best and most effective financial literacy education materials.
“NFI will help kindergarten through high school teachers find appropriate, high quality financial literacy materials through smartDESKTOP,” says NFI Director of Outreach David Godsted. “It is a great collaboration as both NFI’s K-12 financial literacy initiative and smartDESKTOP are focused specifically on connecting teachers with materials matched to today’s Indiana’s academic standards.”
The Indiana Humanities Council’s smartDESKTOP is a web-based suite of tools for teachers. The Desktop includes tools for instructional planning, accessing humanities-rich resources, and supporting classroom-based assessment. Through the Desktop, teachers will have a tool set to support them in their complex work with students, enabling them to plan instruction based on a full range of student achievement data.
Networks Financial Institute at Indiana State University was founded in 2003 with a grant from Lilly Endowment. NFI strives to facilitate broad, collaborative thinking, dialogue and progress in the evolving financial services marketplace, concentrating on the areas of education, outreach and research. NFI is headquartered in Indianapolis with offices on the campus of Indiana State and in Washington, D.C. with outreach internationally. For more information about Networks Financial Institute, visit
www.networksfinancialinstitute.org.