Uchi.ru
Russian online education platform
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Uchi.ru is a group of companies and an educational online platform of the same name. It was founded in 2012.[2][3] The group also includes the online tutoring school "Uchi. Doma" (Learn at Home), the educational portal "Uchi. Otvety" (Learn. Answers), a network of offline clubs Uchi.ru for programming, mathematics, and English language, the educational portal YaKlass, and the cartoon "Zavriki". In 2024, the number of students exceeded 18 million.[4]
All Uchi.ru educational courses and Olympiads comply with the Federal State Educational Standard (FGOS) and the Exemplary Basic Educational Program (POOP).[5][6]
History
The project was founded by graduates of the MIPT — Ivan Kolomoets and Evgeny Milyutin.[7]
In December 2012, the Uchi.ru platform became a resident of the Skolkovo Foundation.[8]
In 2014, when the platform was finalized and tested, the first mathematics course for primary grades was launched. In the same year, the first Olympiad appeared, and the platform also began operating in America under the name Happy Numbers.[9][10][11]
In 2015, the number of children studying on the platform reached 500,000. At the same time, other online Olympiads in various subjects appeared on Uchi.ru.[5]
In 2016, Uchi.ru received the status of a leadership project of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives in the field of education.[12]
In December 2016, the platform received an award from the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute for its contribution to the promotion of the Russian language.[13]
In 2017, Uchi.ru began its work in China, South Africa, India, and Brazil (under the brand Dragonlearn). For students from these countries, as well as Russia, the international Olympiad BRICSMATH.COM was developed.[5]
In 2018, at the initiative of children, a programming course appeared among the Uchi.ru courses. Funding for the course was provided through a crowdfunding campaign.[5][14]
Also in 2018, Uchi.ru launched an online school with tutors "Uchi. Doma".[15]
In 2019, Uchi.ru entered the markets of Indonesia and Vietnam.[16]
In the same year, the III online mathematics Olympiad BRICSMATH.COM took place. About 2 million schoolchildren from five BRICS countries participated. In 2019, the BRICSMATH.COM Olympiad was included in the Declaration of the XI BRICS Summit in Brasília.[17][18]
In September 2019, Uchi.ru, in cooperation with regional ministries of education, began implementing the "Digital School" project. Within the framework of the project, classes in mathematics, and from the 2021–2022 academic year in English and programming using the Uchi.ru platform, are held in educational institutions, using innovative blended learning models. During the implementation of the project, 43 regions took part in it.[19][20][21][22][23]
In March 2020, at the international cybersecurity forum Cyber Security Day 2020, ROCIT and Uchi.ru announced the launch of an online course for teachers to improve digital literacy. The course consists of 11 lectures covering general concepts, cybersecurity, online behavior, use of online services, modern technologies, etc.[24][25]
In the spring of 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the transfer of Russian schoolchildren to distance education, Uchi.ru expanded free access to all platform resources for schools and teachers and launched a number of new free services. For example, a service for conducting individual and group video lessons "Virtual Classroom".[26] Also, online lessons in various subjects began to be held for students in grades 1–8, an express course for preparation for the OGE in mathematics for 9th-grade students, and webinars on organizing distance learning for teachers and school principals.[14][27][28]
Since the introduction of quarantine in the Russian Federation at the beginning of April, activity on the platform increased 6 times, and the number of unique users per day exceeded 3 million people. According to a study conducted by the HSE, in which 22,600 teachers from Russia took part, Uchi.ru became the most popular online educational platform during the period of distance learning.[6][29]
In April 2020, the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media included Uchi.ru in the list of socially significant sites and online services created for the purpose of "informational support for citizens in the context of the spread of a new coronavirus infection".[30]
In April 2020, Uchi.ru ranked second among educational sites in the world and 11th among all sites in Russia (according to Similarweb).[31]
In June 2020, Uchi.ru, with the support of the Children's Rights Commissioner for the President of the Russian Federation, launched a charitable project to help low-income large families. As part of it, children receive free access to all educational content on the platform for 12 months.[32]
At the end of 2020, Mail.ru Group acquired a 25% stake in Uchi.ru for 3.75 billion rubles.[33]
In June 2021, Uchi.ru acquired the educational portal "Vash Urok" (Your Lesson), as well as a minority stake in the "CodeClass" programming school network.[34] And in July of the same year, it became a co-owner of the online school TutorOnline.[35]
From August to December 2021, Uchi.ru, together with ANO "National Priorities", held the all-Russian competition "Znaesh? Nauchi!" (Know it? Teach it!). According to the terms of the competition, schoolchildren filmed videos on popular science topics. For organizing the competition, Uchi.ru received the "For Fidelity to Science" award.[36][37]
In November 2021, Uchi.ru bought 100% of the shares of the YaKlass service (along with 1.6 trillion tasks in 16 subjects), 4% of which was owned by the Internet Initiatives Development Fund (IIDF), and 96% by YaClass Inc.[38]
At the end of 2021, Uchi.ru became a group of companies and united the Uchi.ru online educational platform, the Uchi.ru online tutoring school, the Uchi. Otvety educational portal, a network of offline clubs for programming, mathematics, and English, and the online resource YaKlass.[39][40]
In June 2022, Uchi.ru and HSE announced cooperation in the preparation of masters.[41]
In 2022, the Uchi.ru website became the most visited educational website in Russia (Similarweb data).[42]
Platform features
The Uchi.ru platform includes online courses in school subjects for grades 1–11, as well as preparation courses for VPR (All-Russian Verification Work), OGE, USE, courses in extracurricular subjects for the development of soft and meta-subject skills in the format of comics and educational games. Students study school subjects in an interactive format, taking into account their level of knowledge and individual characteristics.[43][44]
| Subjects | Grades |
|---|---|
| Algebra | Grades 7–11 |
| English language | Grades 1–11 |
| Biology | Grades 5–6 |
| Geography | Grades 5–7 |
| History | Grades 5–7 |
| Mathematics | Grades 1–6 |
| Social studies | Grade 5 |
| The world around us | Grades 1–4 |
| Russian language | Grades 1–9 |
| Physics | Grades 7–8 |
| Chemistry | Grade 8 |
| Geometry | Grades 7–11 |
| Literature | Grades 1–11 |
Teachers have free access to the platform. For students, unlimited free access is organized during classes at school with a teacher until 4:00 PM, as well as additional free access for independent study of up to 20 tasks per day.[45]
Registration in the system occurs through teachers and parents, after which they can register students.
- Teachers, after registering on the site, can add students of their class and give them logins and passwords to enter the platform.
- Parents can register themselves and their child independently, or by receiving a code from the teacher.
In the personal account, information about the child's progress in courses and academic performance is available.[46][47][48][49][50]
Since 2022, tools for diagnosing reading literacy and soft skills of students have become available to teachers.[51]
Olympiads
Since 2015, Uchi.ru has been holding online Olympiads for students in grades 1–11.
| Olympiad | Grades |
|---|---|
| Russian language | 1–9 |
| Mathematics | 1–9 |
| The world around us | 1–6 |
| Dino-Olympiad | 1–4 |
| Financial literacy and entrepreneurship | 1–9 |
| Safe roads | 1–9 |
| Programming | 1–2 |
| Literature | 1–9 |
| Ecology | 1–9 |
| English language | 1–9 |
| BRICSMATH.COM | 1–11 |
| Chess | 1–9 |
| "Safe Internet" | 1–9 |
More than 500,000 primary school students took part in the "Russian with Pushkin" Olympiad, held in October 2016 jointly with the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute.[52]
In 2018, the All-Russian meta-subject Olympiad "Closer to the Far East" was held, organized by the Far Eastern Federal University together with the Agency for the Development of Human Capital in the Far East and the online platform Uchi.ru.[53][54]
In 2019, the All-Russian Olympiad "Young Entrepreneur" was held for the third time, in which about 1 million Russian schoolchildren took part.[55]
In January 2020, it became known that universities from 9 regions of Russia would provide bonuses (additional points, increased scholarships, or tuition discounts) to finalists of the mathematics Olympiad held on the Uchi.ru platform with the support of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives.[56]
More than half a million students in grades 1-11 took part in the online programming Olympiad, which was held on the platform in January 2020.[57]
Since 2020, Uchi.ru, together with the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Education, and ANO "National Priorities", has been holding the "Safe Roads" Olympiad. The goal of the project is to instill in children a culture of correct and safe behavior and reduce the number of cases of child injuries on the roads. In 2021, more than 3.7 million schoolchildren took part in the Olympiad.[58][59]
In 2021, the number of participants in Uchi.ru Olympiads was more than 6 million.[23]
Technology
The infrastructure of the Uchi.ru platform is a cloud technology stack. All projects are located in different public cloud services. For the first two years, the project was hosted on the Heroku platform, then moved to IaaS platforms.
All applications run in Docker, software deployment is carried out using the Shaman program developed internally. Server configuration is performed using the Ansible configuration management system. Terraform is used to manage infrastructure resources as code.
Frontend: TypeScript + JavaScript, React, Redux, Mobx. Backend: Ruby On Rails + Node.js, Go, Python, ActiveRecord, and SQL.
The learning process on the platform is organized using mechanics of interactivity and gamification. The adaptability of the educational process is carried out using artificial intelligence technologies — the system collects and analyzes data about the learning process and builds an individual learning program for the student.[60][61][62][63][64]
Performance indicators
In 2022, the number of registered students reached 10 million, parents — 5 million, teachers — 450 thousand. In 2022, the number of company employees was more than 750 people.[1]
Awards and ratings
2017
- MUF’17 Community Awards in "Scientific and Educational Initiatives".[65]
2018
2019
2020
- Winner of the Ministry of Digital Development of Russia award "Digital Summits 2020" in the nomination "Best solutions for distance learning".[68]
- Recognized as the third largest Russian EdTech company by RBC and Smart Ranking.[69]
- 2nd place among the most visited educational sites in the world according to SimilarWeb.[50]
- In March 2020, at the EdTech Review conference (India), the BRICSMATH.COM project won in the Math Solution of the Year category.[70]
2021
- Diploma of the II degree of the VII All-Russian Award "For Fidelity to Science" for the competition of popular science videos "Know it? Teach it!".[71]
- Ministry of Digital Development of Russia "Digital Summits 2021" award in the nomination "Best IT solution for additional education".[72]
- 1st place in the international competition of technological companies in education GESAwards Russia 2021.[73]
- The financial literacy course took 2nd place at the international competition EdCrunch Award OOC 2021 in the nomination of the same name, the programming course for grades 1-6 — 3rd in the nomination "Creative Programming".[74]
2022
- Award "Best Social Project of Russia" for the online Olympiad "Safe Roads".[75]
Research
- In May 2019, the results of a study conducted by the Ministry of Education and Science of Chechnya together with the Uchi.ru platform were presented. During the study, 1600 students studied mathematics in a blended format for two months — at school with a teacher and completing assignments on the online service. The results showed that the rate of knowledge growth with this format of learning increases on average by two times.[76]
- In September 2019, "Uchi.ru" conducted the study "Digital Technologies for the Teacher", in which 2700 Russian teachers participated. Teachers answered questions about the use of social networks and messengers, gadgets, and other digital devices within the educational process. The results showed that 98% of teachers use digital equipment, and digital technologies can free up 5 to 10 full working days a year for a teacher.[77]
- From October 2021 to May 2022, a study was conducted in the Kursk region to assess the increase in knowledge through the use of digital resources in mathematics lessons. 3.5 thousand students of grades 5-9 took part in the study. According to the results, the blended learning model, in which digital resources are used during regular lessons, increases knowledge growth by an average of 3.9%.[78]
- In the fall of 2021, Uchi.ru, together with VK Education, conducted a survey among students and teachers and found out whether children face cyberbullying and how aware adults are of this. According to the students' answers, 24% face cyberbullying every time they quarrel with someone, and 69% faced bullying online a couple of times. Among teachers — 50% know about the problem and how to deal with it, for 20% cyberbullying is an unfamiliar phenomenon. 815 teachers and 105 students took part in the study.[79]
- Uchi.ru, together with Dobro Mail and Deti Mail, conducted a study on inclusive education. A survey among 6191 teachers and 6900 parents showed: 63% of teachers have experience working with children with special needs, 60% of teachers note that it is important for children with disabilities to study with all other children, 25% of parents have a positive attitude towards inclusive education, 18% — negative, 44% — neutral.[80]