The fourth edition of the Explore the Internet mentorship school, an intensive three-month program, concluded in June, culminating in a final competition of certification projects.
This year’s curriculum was significantly expanded to include a major new module on Cybersecurity, developed with experts from F6. This block provided educators with practical strategies for teaching schoolchildren the essentials of digital hygiene and safe online behavior. The standard program was also enhanced with new lectures on leveraging artificial intelligence to develop educational content and techniques for producing effective educational videos. These workshops were designed to help teachers transform their lessons into high-tech, interactive experiences that resonate with the digital generation’s cognitive processes.
The program demonstrated high demand, receiving 330 applications from specialists working with children and youth across Russia. The Chelyabinsk Region had the highest number of participants, followed by Moscow and the Trans-Baikal Territory. Strong representation also came from St. Petersburg, the Samara and Bryansk regions, and the Krasnoyarsk Territory.
From this pool, about 80 applicants were pre-selected based on a test task to form the main cohort. Ultimately, 47 educators successfully completed the program – passing final testing and defending their certification projects – to become graduates of the fourth School.
“A key task for our mentors is to develop a lesson plan by the end of the course,” commented Olga Yakovleva, Head of the Project Department at the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ. “Their scripts have to utilize tools and theory from the ‘Explore the Internet & Govern It’ project, applying the knowledge gained during the program. This year, we saw some of the School’s most interesting and diverse projects yet.”
A selection of the most successful projects – suitable for younger students, vocational trainees, parents, and new internet users aged 50+ are now featured in the mentorship school’s updated manual, Interactive Tools of the ‘Explore the Internet & Govern It’ Project in the Modern Educational Environment. Published on the School’s website, the manual is available for self-study. This second edition is more user-friendly, with improved navigation and helpful diagrams that visually illustrate the key concepts.
All graduates of the fourth School received dual certification: a Mentor’s Certificate for the Explore the Internet & Govern It project and an official state-standard professional development certificate. Additionally, the creators of the six best graduation projects were awarded special prizes, including sets of the Explore the Internet board game, informational memos, the comic An Imba Error: How I Nearly Spilled Everything, and the book International Internet Governance.
In October, the Explore the Internet mentorship school will launch a new course for teachers from the Kaliningrad Region, “Safeguarding Youth in the Digital World: Risk Prevention and Protection Strategies.” This pilot project’s curriculum covers a wide range of essential topics, including the use of digital content, digital copyright, personal data protection, the impact of the digital environment on child development, identifying destructive content and manipulative practices, threat prevention on social media and in instant messengers, scripts for assessing online resource safety, digital hygiene and other issues related to protecting children in a digital society.
The Explore the Internet mentorship school offers a professional development program for specialists working with children, schoolchildren, and students, focused on building advanced IT skills.
The curriculum includes foundational lectures on the internet’s history, structure, and governance, including the internationalization of the global network. It also features special seminars based on the Explore the Internet & Govern It project, all designed to equip participants with strategies for boosting digital literacy and integrating digital tools into their educational practices.
The course is held once or twice a year by the Academy of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ and the Academy of Innovative Education and Development, with expert support from industry partners including Rostelecom, F6, the Internet of Things Association, the Smart Internet Foundation, and others.
