Digital City

Pereslavl-Zalessky  citizens  PC  85% (Ethernet) 100 —10 Мb/s  Global Traffic 217 GB/m = 155in + 62out (GB/m)  Local Traffic GB/m

Outward channels, 1997  The number of networked computers and the quality of inward bandwidth were not the only things to change; what is more important, the attitude of map designers to the importance of inward and outward channels has changed.

2005  After 1998 outward channels moved to the lower part of the map and take progressively less place.

Digital Collections  From 1996 through 2000 with a financial support of Russian and foreign funds, a few digital collections were created in the Pereslavl network such as animal and plant kingdom of the Pereslavl region, historical materials, funds of museums and monasteries. Unfortunately, when this work started nobody thought about possible ways of making collective access to those materials either of using them as a part of common learning aids. 

Educational Projects  “Our common island” - Virtual Classroom Contest '98  “Takeda San's Letters”  "Granny's Tales" Virtual Classroom Contest '99  French-Russian project IMUTE.

Local Community Resources  In 2000 a public voluntary server tower.botik.ru was born in the town. Its mission is to support individual and collective resources of the town inhabitants.  In 2002 the Kirill and Mephodi media library was located in the Pereslavl network.

Local Educational Resources

Emergent community  The existing policy of favoring moderate price gave a great freedom to the development of town telecommunication resources. Several servers contain educational and other kind of resources such as films, books, music, paintings, photographs, etc. that are available merely within two town domains botik.ru and pereslavl.ru.

Challenge  Nobody knows how to organize collective access to those materials and how to use them as a part of common learning aids. 

Social Software  Blogs  WikiWiki  Social bookmarks  Flickr  NPJ  Socialability  Usability  Shareability

Local educational projects in collaborative micro worlds  “Rural Media Library”  “Collective hypertext”  “Open school encyclopedia”

Scratch culture

Ecological Thinking  In some ways, the design of a new learning environment is like the design of a StarLogo simulation.  M. Resnick “Thinking like a Tree”

Learning Web  We live in times that require high levels of creative thinking and elevated personal and social responsibility for the citizens of the planet to work together. Fortunately, we also have powerful tools that can help facilitate processes of creative and collaborative learning. In line with what Illich wrote as far back as 1972, we may still ask ourselves: "What kinds of things and people might learners want to be in contact with in order to learn?" The likely answer now is that there is a great need for communication tools and shared spaces in which people can collaborate.  Illich, I. (1972). Deschooling society. New York: Harrow and Row. (URL: ch/1970_deschooling.html ) ch/1970_deschooling.html