As Published In May 2004

Think.com Builds on Oracle Collaboration Suite to Connect Children, Teachers, and Parents
By Minda Zetlin

Using Oracle Collaboration Suite can be so easy, it's child's play. Or, more precisely, a child's learning tool. Just ask students and teachers at the more than 4,000 schools worldwide using a service called Think.com, a Web-based environment that lets them connect to parents, teachers, and their peers in other classrooms, other school districts, or the other hemisphere.

Think.com, which Oracle sponsors, is designed for kids age 7 to 14 years old. It's provided free to schools and gives each student a personal Web page and e-mail address. "Teachers are using it to communicate with parents," notes Marsha Spanswick, technology integration coordinator at Colorado Springs School District 11, a district of more than 60 schools, which began rolling out Think.com last fall. "They have a parent page where they can put homework assignments, field trip information, and what they're currently teaching."

Meanwhile, elementary school students are using it for something called the "Battle of the Books," says Kathy Norgaard, also a technology integration coordinator at School District 11. "There's a specific list of books to read, and kids respond to different items on the list. They're having an online discussion about books." Think.com is a closed environment, monitored by teachers at member schools, and students can receive e-mails only from other Think.com members or addresses they've listed in their address books.

The e-mail component of Think.com is built on Oracle Collaboration Suite's e-mail. The Web page component, although not made from the same technology, serves a similar function to Oracle Collaboration Suite's file sharing: It allows students and teachers to share information within the Think.com community and also post their own work for others to read and comment on.

And most who've done it have found that they quickly gathered comments—questions, praise, or critiques, sometimes in languages other than English—from students in other schools nearby or far away. Many of these come in the form of "stickies"—the digital equivalent of yellow stick-on notes.

And conversations that start out like this can blossom into friendships crossing geographic and cultural borders. "One middle school teacher with a technology class had Think.com as part of his curriculum," Spanswick says. "So he planned an assignment where each student had to use the system to go out and find an international buddy." But the teacher wound up canceling the assignment. "It turns out most of the students already had one."