System and method for creating, processing and managing educational content within and between schools

An educational content communications system for processing and managing education content within one or more systems of schools, comprising:

• at least one server computer and plurality of client computers including, respectively, server and client processors for executing server and client input and output elements for communication between said server and client computers;
• and said server computer(s) further including:
• a user database, said user database including information related to users of said client computers wherein said users include students, teachers, parents and administrators for each of said schools and administrators for administrative entities responsible for each of said system of schools,
• an educational content database, said educational content including any school or educational content that is created, managed or processed by said users;
• a user access means through which said users can create, process or manage said educational content for each of said user's school or said user's system of schools;
• a user management means for a systems administrator, teachers or parents at said school to define what educational content said user can create, manage or process;
• and
• a directory service processor which maintains the relationship data between said schools and said users including which of said schools are within which of said system of schools, what administrative entities are responsible for which of said schools and which of said users belongs to which of said schools or which of said administrative entities.

An educational content communications system for processing managing education content from third party providers, comprising:

• at lease one server computer and a plurality of client computers including, respectively, server and client processors for executing server and client input and output elements for communication between said server and client computers;
• and said server computer(s) further including:
• a third-party provider information database, said third-party provider database including data identifying said third-party providers and third-party educational content programs that each of said third-party providers are offering to users of said client computers wherein said users include students, teachers, parents and administrators for each of said schools, data identifying which of said users have access to which of said third-party educational content programs, and the user identification and password information for each of said users to access each of said third-party educational programs;
• a third-party provider management means for a systems administrator to create, process and mange what said third-party educational content each of said users can access and said user identification and password information for each of said third-party educational content programs;
• a third-party provider processing means for responding to each of said user's requests for a third-party educational content program to which said users have access by retrieving said user identification and password information for said third-party educational content program from said third-party provider information database, transmitting said request for a third-party educational content program to said third-party provider with said user identification and password information, and delivering said third-party content program to each of said users.

An educational content communications system for processing and managing education content within school communities comprising:

• at least one server computer and plurality of client computers including, respectively, server and client processors for executing server and client input and output elements for communication between said server and client computers;
• and said server computer(s) further including:
• a user database, said user database including information related to users of said client computers wherein said users include students, teachers and administrators for each of said schools;
• a community information database, said community information including data identifying said school communities that said users have created, data on said users that have access to said school communities, and educational content created by said users that have access to said school communities;
• a school community management means for a systems administrator within each of said schools to define said school communities to which each of said users can access;
• a school community access means whereby each of said users at each of said schools can create, process and manage said educational content for each of said school communities;
• a directory service processor which maintains the relationship data between said school communities and said users including which of said users belong to which of said school communities.

A method of providing third-party educational content programs available over the Internet to school users, comprising the steps of:

• generating unique student identification information for each student in a school;
• identifying for each of said students, teacher, parent or administrator said educational content programs to which each of said students shall have access;
• obtaining from third-party educational content providers of said third-party educational programs user identification and password information for each user who will have access to each of said third-party educational content program;
• storing said user identification information for each of said users and for each of said third-party educational content programs to which each of said user has access;
• requesting from said third-party educational content provider said educational content program that said user has requested and to which said user has access by sending said user identification and password information to said third-party educational provider;
• and
• delivering said educational content program to said user who selected said educational content program.