Every school recognizes that a school intranet would be a valuable resource to have. Many schools already have vast networks and large numbers of computers but how effectively are they really being used?
Schools that tried have found the reality is that intranets are not simple to setup. For a start, creating and maintaining all the web pages needed is a very time consuming task - and many schools get bogged down developing pages that concentrate on the administrative aspects of school such as timetables and getting policies on-line.
While these are clearly important aspects, they do nothing to assist students' learning. It's a simple case of automating for the sake of automating. Instead of automating, we should be informating in schools.
To do this, intranet development in schools should be driven and owned by the students and that's where Students' EduWeb comes in. It does the automating so the students can get on with the informating.
In a nutshell, EduWeb takes all the legwork out of developing a student-centered intranet. In a typical school intranet, students submit work to a teacher in various forms - paper, MS Word, Publisher and so on - the teacher then massages the work to make it fit into the school's website or intranet and uploads several updated pages to the webserver. It's a huge task for someone who probably already has a full teaching load. In the end, many intranets and school websites pass their use-by dates, too time consuming and difficult to keep alive.
EduWeb turns the typical school intranet process on its head. EduWeb hands the school's intranet to its rightful owners - the students.
By giving the students perceived ownership of the intranet, you will instill many positive values and provide them with the opportunity to responsibly manage an important school educational resource. And the pride that is evident in students that have published websites is reflected in higher quality content and presentation.
Students' EduWeb is the starting point for all of this. |
