My successes.

In 2016, after reading about Perceptual Learning and how it was used to learn to classify paintings in a museum, Tom Gordon was inspired to create Geography perceptual learning modules (PLMs) for his students at Northwestern Michigan College. 

Enlisting the help of Mark DeLonge, John Velis, and John’s students at NMC, they developed the world’s first PLM web application. The application gathered a following with more than 60 modules and hundreds of regular users, including NMC instructors, Harvard graduate students, and a Nursing instructor from Paris.

In 2022, the team received a grant from the NMC Foundation and its Office of Possibilities Committee to rebuild the site. This is also when the team began meeting with Dave Summers and Molly Everette from SCORE.

Dave and Molly provided feedback on the new web application and helped shepherd the project through the rebuild. Ed Ketterer met with the team and provided critical knowledge during the team’s negotiations with the college regarding intellectual property.

Among other contributions, the SCORE team was instrumental in encouraging us to pursue an intellectual property agreement for "Think Locker." The resulting confidence we've gained has been instrumental to our creation of a second product, "ForgetMeNot" which will also launch in the very near future. So, one local SCORE team helped create two new products in one new startup. This is some good math.

Traverse City web developer, Flight Path, and local graphic designer, Gavin Bebb were used for the new application. It was rebranded as Think Locker (thinklcoker.com) and released in late 2023. Dubbed “Flash Cards on Steroids,” Think L ocker can be used in numerous subjects from aviation to dental instruments to math to birding and even basketball.  The tool can also be used for sales training or employee onboarding.

Think Locker structures learning by presenting users with different pictures of an item that needs to be identified. BUT instead of just seeing one picture of a bald eagle, users see multiple pictures of a bald eagle, a bald eagle feather, a bald eagle in flight, and can even hear a bald eagle. Identification of other birds is interspersed to create an interleaving effect.

Recently, the application was monetized as a freemium service with an optional paid subscription. The Think Locker team Is focused on developing marketing channels and has plans for another application next year.