The term Intranet describes an "internal" computer network (restricted to your school or organisation) which uses tools and protocols normally associated with the Internet.

The content available to students and teachers using an Intranet is created by students and teachers in the school.

An Intranet can also provide guided access to relevant Internet sites supporting the curriculum.

"Learners with different skills and backgrounds should collaborate in tasks and discussions in order to arrive at a shared understanding" (Duffy and Jonassen 1992).

A school Intranet provides a wonderful environment for publishing students' project work and teachers' information pages, as well as providing a collaborative "project sharing" environment, supporting a wide variety of traditional learning outcomes.

An intranet can be an intra-school (and inter-school) communication medium, with content developed by all members of the school community.

A school intranet, where students publish their own work, can play a pivotal role in supporting a constructivist learning environment.

This environment can actively supports Bloom's six levels of thinking skills - remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating, and creating - most notably the higher three or four levels.

School Intranet Site:

Somewhere PS
A sample school Intranet site - get an idea of the possibilities for a school Intranet site.

Student and Teacher Sites:

Ellen's Place
An example of a student's intranet site.

Ms Lee's Information
An example of a teacher's intranet site.

Information on an Intranet is exchanged between computers throughout a school campus using the TCP/IP protocol (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol).

Each computer on an Intranet network has a Web browser installed (such as Safari, Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc). The default Home page of the browser is configured (in the browser application preferences) to display a web page stored on another computer on the local network (the "web server"), rather than displaying a page from the Internet.

A computer which stores information that is being accessed by computers on an Intranet is known as a server. If it is storing and distributing web pages it is know as a Web Server, if it is storing and distributing mail it is known as a Mail Server, etc.

In a small school, such a server can easily be an ordinary desktop computer. In a larger school, the server is likely to be a dedicated computer with higher specifications than other computers on the network.

In either case the server will need some software installed and configured, to be able undertake its role as a web server.

In a small network this can be as simple as enabling the standard Web Sharing facility already built-in to the operating system. In a larger setting it may involve configuring the Web Server element of a dedicated file server.