I am not going to talk much about the implementation, since I talked about it in the bussiness section. I try to give the idea of how things work.
There are many things that you can apply the Internet to the educational systems. Two main things are sharing resources and sharing information.
Software Library may be a good example for sharing resources. There are thousands software for education specially CAE and Information CD, i.e., magazine, but most of them are expensive. Some of them requires a lot of storage space. Even if you are develop software by yourself, you may face the problem of updating it. If there are two or three class rooms or couples of schools want to use the same software. It might not be a bad idea to cooperate with each other.
I have heard of some things more than just software. At my university (Case Western Reserve University), there is a project of sharing a laboratory here for the other universities through the Internet. In this case you may be required a knowledge of interfacing between software and hardware. Other part should be the same as sharing software. The sharing laboratory is useful for the expensive equipment, or the virtual environment. For example, the south-eastern school can experience how to grow plants in the southern climate.
Now I assume that there are a group of schools want to make this thing happens. The idea should be the same as many class-rooms in the same school. The class-rooms may be easier since the high-speed networks can be implemented. Many software are designed to be able to run on some network protocols, e.g., many PC software can run over NetWare Network, Microsoft Network. In this case, I don't think I have much to say. For the low-speed networks, followings are things that can be done.
The first simple way to implement can be just download the software that you need every time one want to use. This way should be fine, if the software is not too big, or can be separated into small working pieces. At the beginning of class, teacher can download about one Mbyte of software over the MODEM line, while gives the introduction.
The more complicated way is to implement the software or the user interface part to be on-line access through the network. This seems to be difficult, but it is not that bad. If you are interested, I can point you to many places on how to implement.
GENIe should be a good example for sharing information. This project studies about the world development. It is the class to educate young people how the world have been changed. More than ten countries, so far, join this project. The information sharing becomes the main issue. Since the objective is to give the overview idea of the whole world to people, the information should come from many places on this earth. The basic strategy is using E-mails. The need of having graphical information, bring the idea of using the ftp and world wide web technology.
It seems to be far away for a group of schools, but please think about the idea. In the medical school, students in northern part of country will have chances to know about problems in southern part. The students in junior high school from southern part can talk to people in the north about what tribes that they just known.
I think it is long enough for this page. For questions or comments, feel free to let me know.