_Urge
Seeing as that I have a lot of upcoming changes occurring in my life, I am realizing I very much need to watch what I spend.  If I had a dollar for every time I bought something that I really didn't THYNK I needed, well, I'd have a lot more than just those dollars!  Let's just look at today: I only bought Starbucks once instead of 3 times (saved $10.00), I didn't go out for lunch (saved about $6.00), it's a Woot-off (need I say more? $50 or more saved).  Since I did not act on my urges to spend money, I saved at least $66 today!  Hmm, if only there was an app for that.  Hey!  I THYNK there is! Urge, by Tradeoff, LCC does just this; it keeps track of the times we resist the urge to spend money on the things we really don't need.  Watch the savings build up!  It's really quite rewarding.  I love one reviewers quote: "Great idea. Nice app. Good timing when personal to governmental fiscal discipline is all the more important. How about US Govt. gets this app and urges a few trillion dollars off wasteful spending!"  If only...




Device Compatibility: iOS 4.0 or later - iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad

This is not a good sign...this is a new blog and I have gone over 2 days without a post.  Yikes!  Well, it is time to start THYNKYN again, which is precisely what these sites get you to do.  They are not your traditional "tools."  I consider these sites as "Tools to make you go 'hmmm.'"  There is so much content out there on the internet, and a large percentage of it is...how should I put this?...atrocious, possibly harmful and often just not true.  I THYNK the links below take you to places that are interesting, thought-provoking, and full of excellent content.  Are you THYNKYN the same thing?

XKCD
XKCD has been around for a while, so I'd venture to guess many of you already know about this one.  But if you don't, I recommend that  you get to know it.  It is a webcomic, but not just any old comic.  The comic's tagline describes it as "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language."  Even though the authors use stick figures to represent their ideas, the comics often "feature university-level subjects" (Wikipedia).  The subject matter is usually quite intricate, requiring a high level of THYNKYN.  Additionally, new comics are posted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, leaving the website users with no more than a day or two without a new comic to read.  They are so prolific, that in the 6 or 7 years XKCD, it celebrated the posting of its 1000th comic on January 6, 2012.  Furthermore, if you just don't "get it," there is a THYNKIN tool for that too called Explain XKCD, in which an explanation of the daily XCKD comics is provided.  While some of them are inappropriate, many of them would be a great starting point for teaching various subject matters to students.  Since the comics are licensed under a Creative Commons attribution-noncommercial license, you are free to copy (download) and share the comics.  Can you THYNK of any other ways to use this tool in the classroom?  Please share!

Gapminder
Gapminder, another "oldie but goodie," is a non-profit venture – a modern “museum” on the Internet – promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.  Gapminder prides itself on "Fighting the most devastating myths by building a fact-based world view that everyone understands."  Gapminder claims to be working on two important goals:

1. Keeping their statistical content current and freely available.
2. Producing videos, presentations and charts that show major global development trends.

If you ask me, I THYNK Gapminder is meeting these goals.  And using this in the classroom??  Piece of cake!  There are so many possible ways to integrate this tool to support learning, and if you need help, visit Gapminder's Teacher Page; they have a lot of excellent, helpful ideas for educators.  If you are like me, and you love data, this is a tool for you.

Letters of Note
Every once in a while I stumble across a tool or site that is not only content rich, but actually inspiring as well.  Letters of Note is one of those sites.  Letters of Note describes itself as " an attempt to gather and sort fascinating letters, postcards, telegrams, faxes, and memos. Scans/photos where possible. Fakes will be sneered at. Updated as often as possible; usually each weekday."  It is basically an archive of true, captivating correspondence that can elicit some really deep, high-level THYNKYN.  With such a diverse offerings of topics, this too is a great site for classroom use.  Let me know what you THYNK. 

_Code Year: Learn How To Program In 2012
Code Year is using the new year to launch its new interactive programming lesson initiative.  They encourage users to "Make your New Year's resolution learning to code."  Essentially, Code Year sends you one free interactive lesson per week, and over the courses of 52 weeks your should become a pretty good computer programmer.  I never did like the word "should."  However, it seems as if Code Year will indeed "get the job done" if you stick with it.  Well now   Take a look at THYNKYN's very first post about keeping your New Year's Resolutions.  That just might help!  I am going to give it a shot.  I'll keep you all posted on my results...

Every year (and not just over the holidays), I am left with hours of videos that I usually do nothing with.  I’m sure that doesn’t describe ANY of you.  (Yeah, right!)  In an effort to find “the lazy woman’s way to editing my videos,” I came across some pretty cool tools.  What do you THYNK?

Magisto
Magisto is a web app that will simply make your video worth sharing.  It will take a long and boring video, take the gist of it and create a great-looking clip you’d be proud to share. And it is all done in a few clicks.  This is similar to Animoto, but with a new little twist.  I think my allegiance is still to Animoto, a tool I have been using since virtually the day it first came out, but I like to mix it up a bit, and Magisto is one that I plan to add to the mix.  (Added later: I created my first Magisto clip.  This tool is great!  The clip I uploaded is a video of me doing karaoke.  Oh my!  The greatest part about it is the audio dubs over my voice: http://www.magisto.com/video/bg5FZwlTQmIKDURq

Device compatibility: Website Tool

Flixlab
Flixlab is a free iPhone app that transforms your video clips and pictures into great movies to share on Facebook, YouTube, email, and SMS. Simple! First you need to download Flixlab to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.  Then you have a few easy steps to complete your video:

1. Select the pictures and videos you want in your movie.
2. Select friends you’d like to tag (if you’re using Facebook).
3. Pick a theme that fits your movie.
4. Pick a song, any of our tracks or any song in your iPod library.
5. Do some other basic editing, such as trim your videos, add text, reorder clips, and several other things to personalize your video.  That’s a lot you can do, easily and quickly!
6. Finally, preview it, and then share it!

Now, just to get an iPhone.  I am taking donations, folks! :-)

Device compatibility: iPhone, iPod and iPad apps.

Animoto - an oldie but goodie!
I mentioned this tool, Animoto, above.  It is one of my favorites, and has been for a long time. Animoto is a web application that automatically generates professionally produced videos using their own patent-pending technology and high-end motion design. Each video is a fully customized orchestration of user-selected images and music.  So what the heck does that mean???  Basically, you upload your videos and photos, select your music, and their amazing technology creates a video that orchestrates (i.e. "goes with") the music.  Your video moves along at the speed of the audio.  When there is an intense crescendo in the music, the the visuals in your video represent that.  If the music slows down, so does the feel of the video.  It is pretty amazing if you ask me.  Here is an example of a video I put together (in about 3 minutes) when one of the teachers in my district won the Office Max Teacher of the Year.

Device compatibility: Website Tool, iPad, iPod & iPhone apps

After only 2 days of thinking about THYNKYN, I hope you are enjoying it.  Please "Like" us on Facebook, and spread the word.  And don't forget to share your ideas of free tools you think our readers would like to hear about.  Thanks for your support!

Seeing as this is the first THYNKYN post ever, I thought it appropriate to start with sharing some tools to use that will help you keep your New Year's resolutions.  So let's start THYNKYN by working on setting and achieving some goals!  

And without further ado, your very first THYNKYN links...

Remind My New Years Resolutions
Many of us make these things called...hmm...what are they again?  Oh yes, New Year's Resolutions!  We may even start off excited about our resolutions and actually think we are going to stick to them throughout the year! Alas, many of us ignore those resolutions, like we ignore the oil change light on our dashboard.  (Oh, that's just me?!?!) Here to remind you of the resolutions you've made is Remind My New Year’s Resolutions.  It is as easy as 1, 2, 3 to use:

1. When you get to the website, type in up to 5 resolutions.
2. Enter your email address in the appropriate location.
3. Click the "Remind me!" button.

That's all there is to it!  You will now receive reminder emails throughout the year.  Now that's some good THYNKIN!

Device compatibility: Website Tool

Hassle Me
The Hassle Me service is also very easy to use, and it has the added feature of allowing you to determine the frequency of your reminders.  This is as easy as 1, 2, 3, 4:

1. Enter how often you would like to receive reminders of your New Year's resolutions (or goals).
   
2. Type up your resolution/goal.
3. Provide the email address to where the reminders should be sent.
4. Click on "Set up this hassle now."

The nice thing about this is you can either enter all of your goals into 1 hassle, or create a separate hassle for each goal.  If you do the latter, you can receive reminders at different intervals for different goals.  Aren't you THYNKYN this is super quick and easy to use?

Device compatibility: Website Tool

Aherk!
Aherk calls itself a "Goal-oriented self-blackmailing service."  Well if that doesn't light a fire under you to get the job done, I don't know what will.  It threatens to post a "compromising" photo of you to Facebook.  YOU have to upload the photo.  It is very easy to simply remove the app from your Facebook page.  However, what I do like about this tool is that your FB Friends can vote on whether or not you have met your goal.  I'm THYNKYN the interactive collaboration makes this tool stand out.  Here is a nice review of Aherk!




Device compatibility: Website Tool