Silute Secondary School No. 4 has been using the Internet since 1994. It has been a while since we experienced the joy of receiving first e-mails from distant places. In those days we were astonished by the possibilities of the Internet which allowed us to dream about the international projects and relationships with other schools. The suggestion to exchange information about which came from a small Norwegian fisherman town seemed fascinating! We were very enthusiastic about joining the project “Seni medziai” (“Old trees”) which was run by the New York University. Even today we enjoy visiting Web sites containing material of this project. In 1995 we were amazed by the new service of the Internet – the Information Network. It seems to be the year when our “beloved” IBM Aptiva spoke for the first time – visiting www.whitehouse.gov we heard the voice of Hillary Clinton. We will hardly ever be amazed by the power of information technology again. We did not rise any special requirements for the Internet until the middle of 1997. It looked like it was quite enough to have such a wonderful technology which allowed us to send e-mail to overseas, or just to see interesting Web pages and save them in one of our school’s computers.

In the Internet at that time we used to find more and more material about the Internet and about its application for various activities in offices and at schools. About that time (1997) the Program of New Technologies of the Open Lithuania Fund announced a competition "The Uusage of Iinformation Ttechnologies in Eeducation Ssystem". We made a decision to present a project "The Intranet at School". Fortunatelly, the project was supported. This caused a lot of changes. We started to think how information technologies could change the school, lessons, and how it should affect the role of a teacher. More and more teachers began to get interested in the Intranet. Open Lithuania Fund supported the 45-hour-course for teachers about the Intranet pages design. 20 teachers of the school have finished them successfully and most of them have started to design pages for their own subjects in the Intranet. The notion ‘Intranet summaries’ appeared in our life. After our lectures in various seminars on usage of information technologies in teaching and articles in various publications, the interest in the Intranet arose in many schools of the country. Plenty of the Intranet seminars took place in our school during which numerous discussions about various aspects of IT usage at schools have been held. The Intranet of the school was introduced in Sweden, Demark and Estonia during international conferences. These international seminars benefited a lot in sharing and getting experience in the fields of the usage of information and communication technologies in the education system.

Our school met the school year 1999 having the developed school's Intranet and rather big experience in application of information technologies in the lessons or in other school's activities. Participating in the North and Baltic states’ project "The Internet for Participants of the North and Baltic States Projects" we got the right to access the Internet using a radio modem. What has changed in our school, our teachers’ work and the vision of the Intranet? Fortunatelly, the Intranet held out. The "powerful" Internet failed to compete it. We can even say that both these technologies communicated very nicely, supplementing each other with their own advantages. The Intranet is considerably faster when you are accessing the information, the Lithuanian language dominates in it, and it contains the information which is relevant just for our school. It works stably during the lessons and seminars and it allows to concentrate on information. There is no sex, violence and another negative information. Possessing the Intranet, we think about information archives and interactive information pages. First of all, the Intranet is the window to the world. We communicate with colleagues from all over the world through the Intranet, we visit the Intranet sites which are important for our school and we look for suitable information for our school's the Intranet. In the Intranet we learn the news and tendencies of education. The Education Centre of our region, which is settled in our school, activelly uses the Internet of our school. Courses and seminars about information and communication technologies implementation in schools are being constantly organised. The themes of already organised or future courses and seminars are the following: "The Application of Internet Techology in Different Lessons", "The Application of Internet and Intranet Techologies in Different Lessons", "Information and Communication Technologies at School", “The Design of Web Pages". These courses and seminars are organised not only for teachers from our school, but also for teachers from our region and all our country.

A lot of students and teachers fascinated by the possibilities of the Internet seek to have their own computers at home. Thanks to the Intranet, the amount of information is constantly growing, the application of its range is expanding, some special information for parents has been prepared. The friendship between the school Intranet and the Internet that has been lasting for a year gave some results. At the present we speak about "the new baby " – an Extranet. It will broaden the limits of a traditional school. Thanks to the Internet, students, parents and teachers even staying at home will be able to contact with school. Parents are informed about the aspirations and requirements of the school, as well as the achievements of the students. Teachers are given the possibility to use the materials from the Intranet while preparing themselves for the lessons, to find out the news, the school advertisements, etc. Students learn about the projects, various requirements, samples of homework, advertisements, comments on various activities. The Extranet will further stimulate the application of technology of information.

Extranet is the technology that closely connects the Intranet and the Internet.

Here are some ideas expressed by the teachers on the occasion of a year lasting friendship between the Internet and the school’s Intranet.

Vitalija, the teacher of physics: "I use the Internet and the Intranet rather often. I usually look for some material on physics and astronomy. Our city library lacks books on these subjects, especially up-to-date ones. I discover a lot of new material on physics and astronomy in the Internet and I try to refer my students to the sources of this information. In this way we can make our lessons more interesting and useful. We can't study from the books only. The experience of the colleagues from the Internet helps me a lot, too. As a class master, I am also interested in the articles on extra-curricular activities and psychology”.

Alvydas, the teacher of computer science, the leader of scouts: "I work with scouts. In the Internet I find much information about this organization, its activities, the methods of working with children. I apply this knowledge in my work, organize the courses for the leaders of scouts of Klaipeda district. The scouts of our region use e–mail for corresponding with the scouts from all Lithuania and other countries. We get the newest information about the events of scout movement and the camps, we take part in electronic conferences. As a teacher of computer science I can add that the Internet does not allow you to become drowsy. When you have such wonderful opportunities, you can't help getting interested in the newest methods and applying them in your work”.

Violeta, school librarian: “It is hard to imagine our school library without a computer, and the computer - without the possibily to use the Internet. Students as well as teatchers of our school have a chance to use the Internet in the library and in the teachers’ room. Teachers need information while preparing for their lessons, improving their qualification and preparing students for examinations. Students from the upper grades look for information for their reports, school leavers are interested in the work of the Examination Center and higher schools (including foreign universities). The constant possibility to use the Internet allows us to compensate the shortage of textbooks, manuals and periodical literature”.

Saulius, School Principal: "It is very important to have an opportunity to find out the information about the Ministry of Education, the Examination Center and various high educational establishments. It makes the organizational work at school easier”.

The Internet… the Intranet… the Extranet… The world keeps spinning. The Internet is like a river, which freshens and makes us move ahead with it. It is impossible to enter the same river twise. Today we enjoy just the first fruits,what fruit will there be tomorrow – tomorrow we will know.

Tatjana@pamarys.lt

Informat@pamarys.lt