For example, Krasnoyarsk and Tomsk have intracity school networks in which local schools interact among themselves. Meanwhile, individual schools continue to interact with their individual foreign partners. Belarus and Ukraine participated in some international ecological projects by e-mail during the Gorbachev era. Since that time, active teachers have continued to work on the Net. Because the overall development of the Internet has been somewhat slower in those countries, the number of children s organizations on line has not grown very far beyond those early participants.
Computers are rare in schools as well.
In general, the number of schools on the Net is growing steadily, but this growth is self-organizing and chaotic. Today, most of the real work of bringing schools on line is done on the personal initiative of individual teachers and enthusiastic parents. Meanwhile, government officials discuss ways to bring new information technologies into the classroom in principle, and researchers in the field of education write articles and dissertations on the possible impact of Internet technology in education. Russian physicist Andrey Sebrant was one of those pioneers who strongly believed in the necessity of making the World Wide Web available to teachers and children. Still, the audience for those resources remains small.