A contest on online game «Explore Internet – Govern It» in the framework of the CC’s projects for children and teenagers was held in the Moscow school № 25. Pupils from the 9th grade explored more about the Internet thanks to the CC’s educational initiative and were rewarded for the acquired knowledge.
Children and teenagers constitute a significant share of the network audience: according to TNS Gallup, Internet users ageing 12-24 belong to the most active online audience. Global network is a complex mechanism: for a daily safe and pleasing usage of the Internet, it is necessary to know the principles underlying its functioning and this is doubly true as far as children and teenagers are concerned.
The educational game on use of the Internet use was developed by Yaroslavl Center of Telecom and Information Systems in Education (YarCTIS) and Yaroslavl provider, Silvercom on the CC's request. In the future, the educational game «Explore Internet – Govern It» will be posted on the top-level domain .ДЕТИ: the CC’s 2012 annual plan includes an extensive work on development of a safe Internet space for children.
Thanks to the contest, the Coordination Center managed to get comments about its new initiative directly from the users of the educational game “Explore Internet – Govern It”, i.e. from pupils themselves. They took the game enthusiastically, and teachers who learned about the game also noted that such educational projects are nonexistent in Russia at the moment. According to the teachers, the exciting presentation of knowledge about the Internet, which really can get pupils interested, is a perfect educational tool and acquired information may be useful for the pupils in their daily use of the global network.
“One may play the online game «Explore Internet – Govern It» not only at a contest by competing with others: it can be played on one's own, - notes Olga Alexandrova-Miasina, Head of the CC’s Information department. – It is not just an exciting competition; it also is learning by playing. Moreover, the Coordination Center is working on integrating the game into social networks, which will help us to make the game popular among children and teenagers.”
The game «Explore Internet – Govern It» is available for public testing through the end of the year at: http://www.igrainternet.ru. After the end of public testing, the game designers, YarCTIS and Silvercom, plan to launch its upgraded version of the educational online game. The Coordination Center will be further updating the audience about the public testing of the game as well as about related educational events.
