On April 18, the Information Security and Children interregional conference took place in Surgut. It was attended by representatives of the Surgut educational department, heads of educational institutions, representatives of the Territory of Responsible Parenthood project, teachers, and parents. The Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ was an organizer of the conference, and its Project Manager Tatyana Novikova took part in the program.
The Ecology of Information Space at Modern School was the theme of the conference. Tatyana Novikova spoke about how the coordination center’s social projects help form a safer information environment for school students and develop interesting and useful websites for both children and adults, such as the Explore the Internet & Govern It! project above all (Rostelecom is its general partner), and the Family IT Marathon held by the Coordination Center together with the National Parents Association and the Academy of Innovative Education and Development with support of the Smart Internet Foundation. In addition, Tatyana Novikova presented the celebration program of the 25th anniversary of the .RU Russian ccTLD, especially the events for teenagers, and spoke about the celebrations that took place on April 7–9 in Moscow.
In the afternoon, conference guests and students from the Salmanov Gymnasium, which was the venue of the conference, had a chance to take part in interesting workshops. Tatyana Novikova held one on the Explore the Internet & Govern It! project, explaining how to take part in the game and the championship and how to prepare. She also suggested that students tried their hand competing with each other.
“I hope that students will like the project and decide to study it in more detail subscribing for the eighth championship that will take place this fall: there is enough time to train. But at first students were to give answers to a quiz based on the project. By the way, questions for several rounds were proposed by school students who take an active part in the project. Incidentally, the quiz showed that the perceptions of students regarding historical and cultural matters related to Runet’s development differed from region to region. Of course, it has to do with Russia’s size and many ethnic groups, but this may prove useful to the further development of the project,” Tatyana Novikova noted.
School students from most Russian regions take part in the Explore the Internet & Govern It! project. For example, 11,000 participated in the championship last year, with 2,800 breaking in 440 teams. Perhaps this year a team from the Surgut gymnasium will join them.
