In a recent kickoff meeting in Beijing, Oracle announced it will be supporting the National Center for Educational Technology (NCET), an organization under the Chinese Ministry of Education, in carrying out one of the NCET's key educational research projects.

Primary and secondary schools in China will use Oracle's online learning environment, Think.com, as a regular part of their classroom learning experience. At the same time NCET education researchers will study the effects of using these technology-based tools on teaching and learning.

NCET will provide project leadership and will train learning coaches to guide the use of Oracle's Think.com online environment throughout the research study. NCET has selected 126 participating schools from Guangdong, Hunan, Hubei, Yunnan, Jilin, Henan, Fujian, Jiangxi and Sichuan provinces as well as Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing municipalities. Oracle's Think.com will provide students and their teachers with a protected email account and personal web pages where they can publish articles, upload images and host discussions with other Think.com-using

students from around the world. Students will be able to stay connected to their classrooms from home, school or the library. Teachers will use Oracle's Think.com to post multimedia classroom activities, provide online project workspaces, communicate online with parents, and, in the process, will build new technology skills to apply to their teaching. Oracle's Think.com can be accessed from any standard web browser, and supports the Chinese language in addition to English, Spanish and Thai.

The Oracle-NCET collaboration is also part of Oracle's "Golden China Initiatives" which focuses on localization, partnership and commitment to the China market. Launched in 2002, the Golden China Initiatives include the development of local research and development facilities and educational programs.