Transformation
of Humanities Association
Youth International Education Club „NEWLINE“ – www.newlineclub.net
Youth Philosophy Club WWLI-EHU
«OUR
Belarus» Internet-game
General
information
“OUR Belarus” Internet-game is organized by Youth International Education
Club “NEWLINE” (www.newlineclub.net), iEARN-Belarus (International Education
and Resource Network in Belarus, www.iearn4u.com) with support of National
Internet-project “World We Live In” (http://wwli.iatp.by), Internet
Access and Training Program – IATP, www.iatp.by) and Center of support
for schools participating in Internet projects (Minsk Law Gymnasium
#42).
Author
of the idea and technology of the Internet-game is Youth International
Education Club “NEWLINE” of the Transformation of Humanities Association
(www.newlineclub.net).
The
idea and technology of “OUR Belarus” Internet-game was worked out basing
on the concept of the “Uniting Nations” game within the "It’s Our
Time" project (http://www.edu.yar.ru/russian/projects/time-2000/default.html).
"It’s Our Time" project is a global annual project for secondary
schools, initiated by ASPnet (UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network).
The
first «OUR Belarus» Internet-game was held in March 2004 as a preparation
stage for the Spring Discussing Camp of the “World We Live In” project.
To
learn more about previous “OUR Belarus” game’s experience (previous
thematic game’s sessions), please log on the iEARN-Belarus web-site
or follow the link to “OUR Belarus” web-page: www.iearn4u.com/ourbelarus
Mission
of the game
«OUR Belarus» Internet-game – is a wonderful opportunity for its participants
(i.e. school and university students, teachers and any other Internet
users) to get as complete as possible impression about Belarus as a
country valuable for its cultural and historical background not only
for itself, but also for European and other cultural civilizations.
Theme
of the game
Thematic concept of the game is based on the idea of Belarus being a
country of Central-Eastern Europe – a mediator of wide Eastern and Western
cultures; about Belarussians – people-representatives of a rich European
tradition.
Main
objectives of the game
I. To inspire school students to learn more abut the country they live
in and about themselves, to present Belarus to Belarussians and to foreign
participants (that is one of the reasons why we keep three official
languages in the game: Belarussian, Russian and English);
II. To support and increase the knowledge about Belarus among young
people; to stress a historical and cultural aspect of Belarussian identity
within the framework of general European history and other cultures
by multicultural exchange of information;
III. To explore the information about Belarus in the Internet and other
resources, representing the country as one of the countries of Europe;
IV. To involve the game’s participants into the network of iEARN-Belarus
(International Education and Resource Network in Belarus) for their
future communication and collaboration.
Participants
profile
Participants of the Internet-game «OUR Belarus» are young people (school,
university students and those, who generally consider themselves as
young), who are attracted by the possibility to research their own role
and position in history and in the world, work on cultural and historical
background of Belarus as a country of Europe.
We welcome both individual and group participation. If you are a team,
then we expect you to be a team of various educational institutions,
non-governmental organizations and unions (various ages in one group
is possible),
- or you can also join as an individual participant.
Every
young person, who:
– has a desire to try him/herself as a researcher – a representative
of the general living in Knowledge Society,
– has interest in understanding yourself, your country as a full member
of all socio-cultural processes, authors of history,
– has an email address,
– has registered him/herself before the deadline (no later than 20.00
1 day before the game). Important is to include your email address,
so the organizers will be able to send out the game’s tasks,
– has a possibility in the announced day of the game to receive the
game’s tasks and send the answers back by email,
…is extremely welcomed!
Themes
of the game’s tasks are oriented on participants ability to:
• search and select information,
• work with various informational streams and sources,
• form their own answers to the tasks of the game,
• organize and hold mini-researches or would like to learn the methodology
of researches during the game.
Technology
1. Preparation:
• Defining a concrete session’s idea, working out the tasks, forming
the jury.
• Announcing the theme of the Internet-game and time limits.
• Registration of participants:
- forming the school teams,
- registration of individual participants,
- forming an application for participation,
- sending applications to the organizers (no later than 20.00 of the
last day before the game starts).
Application must have the following included:
- name and age of participants / name of the team and age of every participant,
- name of educational institution / name of the organization,
- contact email address to send the tasks of the game when the game
starts
(we will inform you once the registration is done).
2.
Realization:
• Once the game starts (at the announced earlier date and time of the
beginning) all the registered participants receive the game’s tasks
to their email addresses.
SIMULTANIOUSLY, ALL THE QUESTIONS ARE BEING PUBLISHED AT THE WEBSITE
OF THE “OUR BELARUS” INTERNET-GAME: www.iearn4u.com/ourbelarus
• Participants receive 3 hours to use all possible sources of information
and to answer the questions/do the tasks. As soon as they consider their
answers complete, they send back their tasks to the organizers by email.
• Answers received however after the 3 hours of the game, without explained
reason of the delay will not be considered.
• When organizing the team work on filling the tasks, it might be useful
to check the recommendations to participants, located in the “recommendation”
section of the game’s website.
3. Evaluation:
• The jury analyzes answers received from the participants and defines
the winners no later than a month after the game was actually held (it’s
a maximum deadline).
• Prices for winners are being passed on by the jury.
• All the participants and organizers receive certificates.
Criteria
for selection of the best answers:
? Correspondence to the idea and concept of the Internet game “OUR Belarus”;
? Quality of a presented research, it’s reasonability and completeness,
correspondence with the original task;
? Originality of informational impact and personal attitude to the content
(we also welcome visual images and illustrations);
? Informational support (copyrights and links to original documents
are necessary!): wide of sources used for the research.
Interactive
Internet-game “OUR Belarus” – is an annual project of iEARN-Belarus
in cooperation with YIEC “NEWLINE”. The organizers are really grateful
for any feedback, personal participants experience, any proposal towards
improving the game’s concept, rules and organization. All the comments
are necessarily included in the future sessions of «OUR Belarus».
THANK
YOU AND WELCOME!
