School: U CAN School
    Uzhur, Krasnoyarsky krai, Russian Federation

4 students, ages 15-17 worked together to complete this Doors to Diplomacy project on March 16, 2012. They have participated in Doors to Diplomacy in the following year(s): N/A

Classes and Teachers: Mikhail Bukhtoyarov, Anna Bukhtoyarova, Vadim, Anastasia, Ekaterina, Diana

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://moodle.uzhur.org/

1. Description of Our Team

We are a team of four creative young individuals: Vadim (17), Anastasia(16),Diana (16) and Ekaterina( 15). When we learnt about this project and it’s theme, we decided to take part in this project because we are interested in a problem of the Internet influence on youth. So we divided the work by topic. Vadim collected the information on Online Games, Anastasia did the research on Social Networks, Diana took Instant Massaging and Ekaterina studied the ways for a young person to be safe and secure on the Internet. Our coaches Mikhail Bukhtoyarov and Anna Bukhtoyarova helped us to organise our team and develop the strategy of making our project completed. They directed our energy on track.

2. Summary of Our Project

There are a lot of discussions about benefits and harmful aspects of the Internet now. We think that this issue is burning. And so the Internet becomes one of the most essential parts of people’s life. Our purpose is to learn more about this problem and to share our thoughts and obtained data from the research in that people around the world participated. We would like to explain young generation how to use computer and the Internet in a right way and how to protect themselves from a negative influence of network activity. INTERnet is an international network so it unites people all over the world. We think that this problem directly relates to the modern society and influences everybody. Internet becomes very powerful means of establishing diplomatic relations.

3. Our Computer and Internet Access

A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:more than 50%

B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:more than 6

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:more than 6

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

When we started searching for materials on the topic it turned out that there are a lot of different resources. But we were not be able to find any of them presenting the answers of young people from different parts of the world to the SAME questions. And moreover Russian scientists are just starting the research of the influence of the Internet. So we decided to do our own research. But as it was our first real experience we didn't know much about the research methods. So we had to study materials on them a lot and even conducted a 'trail research' on the other topic just to train ourselves.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

The Internet is more than technology. It is an important part of our lives. This digital world is designed for communication, sharing ideas, playing games, getting information of any kind. The Internet is an easy way to reach other places and people. It has no borders. That is why we think it is becoming more important for diplomacy. The Internet brings diplomacy to everyone. To every house and every person.It is a Door to Diplomacy.

6. How did your activities and research for this Doors to Diplomacy Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?

Our content meet the standards of mostly two school disciplines: Information Technology (in terms of studying the Internet as a tool) and Human-Society Interaction (in terms of studying people’s group behavour) But most of the content is based on more advanced level of studying these issues that it is supposed according to the school curriculum.Working on the project we learned the following skills: - Using scientific method to conduct a research (interviews, questionnaires, polls, document analysis), - Networking to find the potential recipients to collect data, - Understanding official documents, - Implementing CMS Joomla to create a project web site. To be able to cover huge amount of work we needed to divide responsibilities and to follow the leader. We definitely know much more about this topic now than before the project as we “extracted” that knowledge from our own research. In this research the Internet was both an object and a tool of our research. We usually use the Internet a lot to learn more about People, but during the project we tried to do the opposite: to learn more about the Internet through People’s opinions about it.

1) What information tools & technologies did you used to complete your Doors to Diplomacy project?

Tools and technologies we used to complete our project: - 5 computers in the classroom - computers at home of each student -mobile phones -video and photo cameras -printers and projectors -video and audio conferencing equipment and PC software -computer software and Internet services -electronic libraries -books and newspapers -live meetings and online discussions within the team We took oral interviews using Skype, questionnaires, Internet polls (5 one-question surveys) and document analysis, Two most useful technologies for collecting data were Skype and Google docs, social networks. The most useful technologies to present results were CMS Joomla and YouTube.

2) In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your Doors to Diplomacy project both on-line and in person.

We think that our project changed minds of people making them think of some issues. People in our community and from other places in the world learned some new information, statistics, took part in some polls and some of them were interviewed. Making that big contribution to our project they had to focus on that topic. And it turned out that this topic is interesting for many people and we have a lot of in common. So we received volunteer help from people both from our local community and from different countries (the USA, Pakistan) using the Internet as a tool for collaboration, achieving the result together. So even through our research we tried to open a new Door to Digital Diplomacy.

3) What has been the impact of your project on your community?

We involved those people from our community who were interested is this topic (mostly young people) and have some thoughts and ideas, so we established new relationships between the members of our community. We have received some feedback and a lot of comments from our friends about our web-project and it’s topic. The most of them were participants of our interviews and polls (about 160 people), but some are people who just wanted to share their opinions on the topic. For several of them our project was a factor changing their attitude to the Internet. They learnt about its negative influence so they would spend less time just hanging out there. Hopefully they will be using our guidelines about safety and security in the Internet and use their time more wisely and efficiently.

4) How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers?

We have been involving helpers and volunteers from our community using polls, groups in social networks, forums and some other ways. People answered questions, gave their opinions and sometimes even argued discussing different “hot topics” using social networks. We would like to say “Thank you” to all people who helped us with working on this project and we expect increasing the number of members of our research team. Welcome!

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

Besides we learned a lot on the topic and technology it turned out that there were a lot of great people in both our local community and around the world who are ready to help each other. Internet brings these people together to achieve the goals for common good. Now we also have understanding that we have so much in common with young people from other places. We would like to continue our research in future using some new approaches.