We just received an email from MrZecker, the iPod story winner of September.
Here is his story that we want to share with you.

Who am I? : I am from the U.S. and teach in New Hampshire.

How long I have been using ThinkFree- ThinkFree has been a valuable tool to me for quite some time, ever since I heard about it last April or so.  There have been many online office suites, and since Google had developed the Spreadsheet application and Writely, Zoho, and ajaxWrite have been fighting over users, I thought it was time to really pick a suite that I wanted to use more freely and be able to access wherever I was.  I used ThinkFree for a while on my own terms, as I am an avid writer and do a lot of freelance stories for newspapers and local television, and ThinkFree really helped bridge the gap between home and the office over the summer.  It wasn’t until school started this year that I saw the immense potential of its use in the classroom.  Frankly, with the ability of students to work and collaborate on projects and to be able to use it seamlessly between their home and the school itself was really a no-brainer.  Needless to say, this website is a really valuable asset to anyone, and with the real-world application of the site in the classroom, it is seriously no surprise that this website would be invaluable to any business in saving time, money, etc.  The microcosm of the classroom, in my opinion, is really just rugged practice for the real world.  ThinkFree is obviously the next-generation of productivity.  I can see it every day in my room.

Using ThinkFree over any other office suite is really quite apparent when you start it up.  With a few clicks you are up and running with whatever you are working on.  Comparitively, in MS, you are struggling with popups, little talking paperclips, and help on things you do not need any help with.  It appears that you can deploy it in whatever fashion you like.  Probably one of the best aspects of ThinkFree is their scalability and cross-platform compatibility.  Quite simply, the ability of this suite to run on MS platforms, but also Macs, and most importantly Linux, this product is going to outsurvive every other.  ThinkFree is simply firecracker software that is certainly going to bring about the new revolution in productivity and compatibility.  I already recommend everyone I know to switch.  Now.

More comment- In my field, I am a secondary English teacher.  Since No Child Left Behind took effect, every state in the union needs some kind of educational assessment that measures the progress of students through the years, and also make sure that they have the skills to survive in the vibrant marketplaces and intensense industries that they will go into when they graduate.

As a teacher of English Literature and having students meet all national and local standards, they must do a great deal of writing and analysis, and the paper load can get quite heavy at times.  They must also display their abilities to me and to the rest of the class to help the other students sharpen their skills.  This paper load and balance of paper and correcting has been a great deal easier since being introduced to ThinkFree in my classroom.  ThinkFree’s word processing tools with its fantastic correction and formatting capabilities allows my students complete and hand in projects and writing assignments without having to hand them to me allows students of all abilities and income levels to participate in the competitive atmosphere of school without having to afford expensive software or ink for their printers.  The Presentation suite that ThinkFree offers is way easier as students love the fact that they can open their presentations in school and it looks the exact same as it did at home.

Peer feedback and other sharing of documents between students and myself is an extremely vauable asset, taking out all the stops in students losing work or edited copies or anything else.  It takes out some many steps and vulnerabilities that face the work that these students work so hard to complete.

The best part is that there is no opportunity for any dogs to eat homework.  They submit it to me in the format and software that they typed it in.

As an English Language Arts teacher, ThinkFree is an asset that I am so greatful for.  It is not the easiest job to spend a lot of time and balance being critical and also encouraging to students, and making sure their writing is as best as it can be.  ThinkFree makes it easier to give students feedback 24 hours a day on how to make their papers better without having to give them a final grade on something until it is perfect.  It is also so much more encouraging to students; rather than handing in handwritten papers as drafts, and then have to rewrite it and rewrite it, they can work on it at home, the public library, and in the building, and see any feedback I want to give them without haing to literally rewrite the entire paper for a second draft, but not the final one. 

I speak often to not only my colleagues but also friends, family, and others about the great resource available…   ThinkFree such an amazing productivity suite, and it makes my life so much easier as an English Literature teacher.  My students and I spend more time embracing technology now and less time cursing it because of little disturbances that old machines, strange software, and every other problem that arises.

You know how your parents always told you to share? Well, now you get to share your documents with others on your own terms, using your favorite email service. You no longer have to hear “you share that document with your colleague or you will get sent to your cubicle without your latte!”

Instead of having to use an email client that you may not be familiar with, we let you pick whichever popular service you currently use: Gmail, Hotmail, or a local client such as Outlook or Thunderbird. If you don’t use one of these, you can still email using ThinkFree Mail.

• Choose from contacts in your address book, no more maintaining multiple contact lists.
• Have a familiar user interface with rich formatting options.
• Maintain the history of all the documents you have emailed in your sent items folder so that you can refer to them at any time.

As you can see, the Share interface has changed somewhat to accomodate the new features. Below is what the resulting email looks like. Note that the BCC field is filled with information about the document. We use the BCC field to track who you have shared this file with to display in the Detail section of the document. That way you always know who is on the sharing list for this particular document, and if you wish to email them later to discuss the document you can do so with the click of a button. We track who you share the document with only for helping to manage your sharing list. We do not use this information for any other reason.

iPod Contest Winner

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Congratulations to Stephen Orr,
the winner of September’s iPod contest!

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
* Stephen, you are going to get an email from us for details. Thanks.

Here is Stephen Orr’s ThinkFree Story.

Q: How long you have been using ThinkFree?
A: I’ve been using thinkfree since summer 06. I “heard” about it while reading an issue of “PC World.”
Q: Why do you use ThinkFree?
A: I use ThinkFree because it’s free, convenient, and it generally works even though it’s still in beta release.
Q: How do you use ThinkFree?
A: Right now I’m using ThinkFree in order to help my students engage in collaborative learning. I set up teams, and team members within each team access ThinkFree and make contributions to their team essay. Since ThinkFree saves all versions of the files created, I can easily discover who’s contributing what. The messaging feature is also nice because it allows teammates to communicate their thoughts and coordinate their activities.

Contest Details

• What: Win a free 30GB iPod -video capable
• When: The contest period starts at the beginning of each month and closes at the end of each month
• How: Every time you invite a new user to join ThinkFree Online, your name will be automatically entered into a drawing for a free iPod.
• For more details please check here. Each individual can only be invited one time.
• Check back here next month to see who wins the contest.