This year the SUSU Children’s Online University Educational Centre has celebrated its second anniversary. Since 2018, the project has been promoting scientific fields of the university and research and development creativity for children. The project has no age restrictions; any schoolchild of the 1st through 11th form can participate in the project and take electronic courses. Children’s Internet University project is one of the few projects, which is completely open, and everyone is given access to the content at any convenient time regardless of where you are located, which is the main advantage and value of this project.
Project manager Elena Kolmychevskaya spoke about the way of attracting schoolchildren to new knowledge and getting them interested in science, in what way we could help them to choose their future profession, and simply spend fun and interesting time.
“We want to draw their attention to the university; interesting people are working here and they are not some distant professors who may be frightening to young generation, but they are ordinary people, who give answers to life-related questions and help children to bring their ideas to life.”
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What Project Deals With
Children’s Internet University creates open free online courses for children, popular science videos involving teachers and partners of the university. It organizes various children competitions on the topics of the recorded videos and other open events, which are sometimes held in-person.
At present, the following courses are offered:
- “School of Deputies of the Legislative Assembly”
Together with our partner, the Chelyabinsk Region Legislative Assembly, children are told about what duties the Deputies of the Legislative Assembly have, and what way laws are established. In the end of the course, children will have an opportunity to record their own video, where they will present their projects on the changes they would like to introduce in their school, district, neighbourhood or city.
Video Lesson 1: https://youtu.be/xSjQV-pA0nM
- “Captain Wrongel, the TIPS Master”
The course is based on the book Adventures of Captain Wrongel by Andrey Nekrasov. During the course, children are invited to solve unusual problems and help Captain Wrongel to overcome difficult situations using TIPS (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving).
Video Lesson 1: https://youtu.be/-VXwEX52I4Y
- “3K: Effective Image-Making of Territories”
In this course children learn to form an image of a territory, attracting the attention to the sightseeing and iconic locations of a city or region.
Video Lesson 1: https://youtu.be/yXU_EPz3krw
- “Sherlock Holmes Lessons”
Children will learn the essence of the Sherlock Holmes’s methods not only in theory but also in practice. They will find out how to develop observation skills and learn why a detective needs imagination, and how to use these skills in everyday life through the examples of books and films.
Video Lesson 1: https://youtu.be/Hcnd-eUf9PM
Education Process
The education process of these courses is the following: children go to open education portal, enrol for courses, watch video lessons and complete tasks and tests. Afterwards, students get electronic certificates of attendance.
“Now we have created over 160 popular science videos, they are basically the expansion of the school curriculum. We do not prepare children for the USE (Unified State Examination) or exams, we attract their attention to science and to what might be interesting or curious,” noted Elena Kolmychevskaya.
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What’s New
From the beginning the content for Children’s Internet University was created by involving teaching and academic staff of the university, later the SUSU students were also involved into the project. However, this academic year we have decided to involve schoolchildren to develop the content, for it to become more understandable for them.
And now we have such columns as “CIU Knows”, where there are answers to children’s questions, for example, “Why do perfumes smell?”. The staff of the SUSU School of Medical Biology helped children to answer that question. In the column “Stop Motion: Historical Investigation” a 6th -form schoolboy together with the Head of the Laboratory of Experimental Archaeology of the SUSU REC of Eurasian Studies Ivan Semyan analyse the Night at the Museum movie for the historical authenticity of the selected images. Moreover, as practice has shown, the chosen “kids to kids” direction has justified itself and attracted a new audience to the university.
“We encourage their curiosity, help them to unlock their talents and what is more important, we give them scientific answers in simple terms. And we have all the means for this: if our children presenters are volunteers, who want to host popular science shows themselves, then our video studio is a professional one, and people with great experience are working there,” explained Elena Kolmychevskaya.
Nowadays Children’s Internet University is planning to increase the volume of the produced content. According to studies, 80% of children watch YouTube every day starting at the age of 8, therefore, YouTube is the best channel for communication with young audience and development of Children’s Internet University.
For more information please visit:
Official web-site: https://deti.susu.ru/
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/ДетскийИнтернетУниверситет
Vkontakte: https://vk.com/deti.susu