Ageing in the Digital Age

 

 

 

 

 

 

About project

Project title: Ageing in the Digital Age

Project number: 2019-1-PL01-KA204-064986

Programme: ERASMUS+ (Adult Education)

Key action: 2 Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Type: Strategic Partnerships supporting for adult education

Duration: from 31/12/2019 to 29/06/2022 (36 months)

This project is co-funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ Programme.

Description

Europe is facing a “longevity revolution”, as the number of old and very old people will increase in the coming decades: According to Eurostat, by 2060 one in three Europeans will be over 65 years old, and every 8th person will be at the age of 80 and above. Very old people will thus not be a small minority in our societies but a significant citizen group. The time has come to change the attitude towards them and to shift the focus from inabilities to opportunities and strengths. The older generation needs to be provided with educational support to enable them to remain active members of society and face the challenges of growing old independently for as long as possible.

Statistics show that senior citizens are often missing out the lifelong learning opportunities, although lifelong learning is one of the key factors of successful ageing and helps the wellbeing of seniors in later life, stimulating their social inclusion and interest in life.

As the world is transforming into a knowledge society, we increasingly rely on information delivered through computers and mobile technology devices. However, senior citizens form a large part of society that mostly lacks the required skills to participate in this development. This situation creates a growing group of disadvantaged citizens and contributes to the digital divide of European society.

This imbalance also means lost opportunities, as technology can offer many ways of improving quality of life, especially for senior citizens. More than ever before, services, including public services and business transactions, are moving online. The absence of digital skills in senior population is often synonymous of social isolation, segregation in access to information and services, loss of autonomy and increased sense of inability to adapt to the society. Indeed, improving digital skills in seniors is one way of improving their quality of life through an active lifestyle and freedom of choice and decisions.

Leaflet English / German / Polish / Slovak / Slovenian

Newsletter no 1 English / German / Polish / Slovak / Slovenian

Newsletter no 2 English / German / Polish / Slovak / Slovenian

Partnership

Stowarzyszenie “EBI Association”, Jastrzębie-Zdrój, Poland (Co-ordinator)

EBI Association is a non-profit organization functioning from 2016. It works for the development of Education, Business and Innovation. Knowing how important it is to combine these three pillars in the creation of a modern knowledge-based society, we try to implement projects, which, on the synergy principles, focus on a development of science, entrepreneurship and allow implementation of interesting innovations in the region.

The Association builds its own cooperation network i.a. through contacts with local, regional, and international institutions and organizations.

Contact:

E-mail: biuro@ebi.org.pl

Website: www.ebi.org.pl

INTEGRA INŠTITUT, Inštitut za razvoj človekovih potencialov, Republic of Slovenia

INTEGRA’s mission and vision are based on the development of human potentials whereby the accent is on the provision of services in the field of humanistic sciences for different target and age groups. As public officers for the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs, our professionals working at the Institute perform special counselling and experts’ work in the field of occupational rehabilitation in close cooperation with the Employment Service of Slovenia and the Pension and Disability Insurance Institute of the Republic of Slovenia.

Furthermore, the central activities of the Institute are based on educational and advisory services and the development and the implementation of social innovations, as well as on the research in the field of human resources.

Contact:

E-mail: office@eu-integra.eu

Website: www.eu-integra.eu

QUALED občianske združenie pre kvalifikáciu a vzdelávanie, Slovak Republic

QUALED is a non-profit organization working in the field of adult education. Our team focuses in particular on the development, adaptation and innovation of creative and innovative educational products, methods and seminars for adults. Since 2008, QUALED has been involved as didactic expert in many educational projects delivering didactic and methodological expertise in the form of pedagogical counselling, couching, presentations and seminars.

QUALED has been actively involved in development of innovative training tools in both vocational and adult education. During the long term cooperation with various educational organisations covering different areas of vocational training, the didactic team of QUALED has proven the ability to influence diverse areas of education. Besides that, QUALED has co-developed training materials targeting personal competences as well as marketing and entrepreneurship.

Contact:

E-mail: office@qualed.net

Website: www.qualed.net

Wissenschaftsinitiative Niederösterreich, Austria

Wissenschaftsinitiative Niederösterreich - Science Initiative Lower Austria (WIN) was founded 1990 as a non-profit association for interdiciplinary, research, consulting and education. Its main activities have been in the field of adult education and labour market related research.

Since 1991 WIN has become active in European projects, especially in managing and coordinating scientific cooperation in European research and education programmes. Since 2008, WIN has been acting as operative partner or coordinator in European transnational projects.

We feel obliged to exploit the vast variety of educational outcomes from our participation in European projects, and to transfer them into our daily activities. To this end, WIN has established an adult education programme that covers the most interesting areas. Courses and seminars take place in our seminar facilities in central Vienna.

Contact:

E-mail: office@wissenschaftsinitiative.at

Website: www.wissenschaftsinitiative.at

Objectives

The overall objectives of the project:

  • to tackle the gap between ageing population and digital literacy and address the high necessity for digital key competences of seniors, and make digital competences more accessible to them,
  • to strengthen and empower professionals, carers and volunteers working with senior citizens, socalled “front-liners” who are in direct and frequent contact with senior citizens to show and to explain which initiatives and programmes exist for older people to learn how to use online tools that improve their health and life quality.

 
The specific objectives of the project:

  • to implement an e-platform with an interactive database, searchable after various parameters, that describes and gives access to initiatives, tools and methods and other materials that have been identified and collected in the course of the project, concerning the promotion of digital skills for people living in the 3rd age which are needed to access public services online, to adapt to the digitaloriented world and to feel confident using online tools which help to improve their health and life quality,
  • to elaborate a Catalogue “Ageing in the Digital Age – Best Practice Support for Digital Competences of Seniors” which will give an overview about the current situation of the specific project environment in the partners’ countries. It will be enriched with the outcomes of the transnational meetings of the four meetings in each partner country where experts from the respective national and local seniors’ education organisations, professionals, carers and volunteers working with senior citizens will discuss these issues with the representatives of our strategic partnership,
  • to organise an online interactive Forum for exchange of experience and good practice that will promote networking and exchange activities not only among the partnership and seniors’ education organisations in their countries, but also on a European level. With new translation services, it will become possible to break down language barriers between users from different countries, and to foster exchange and assist initiatives that contribute to the European society as a whole.

Results

The main tangible outputs:

  • website and e-platform: It will give access, with explanations in all languages of the partnership, to a database, searchable after various parameters, that describes and gives access to initiatives, programmes, methods and materials concerning the promotion of digital skills for people living in the 3rd age, which are needed to access public services online, to adapt to the digital-oriented world and to feel confident using online tools which help to improve their health and life quality, which will be identified and collected in the project,
  • online interactive forum: it will facilitate the exchange between seniors’ education organisations, professionals, carers and volunteers working with senior citizens. It will promote the use of the new machine translation (MT) technology which facilitates real-time translation and is already powerful enough to break down the language barrier between users from different countries,
  • catalogue “Ageing in the Digital Age – Best Practice Support for Digital Competences of Seniors”: it will give an overview about the current situation of the specific project environment in the partners’ countries. It will be enriched with the outcomes of the transnational meetings where seniors’ education organisations, professionals, carers and volunteers working with senior citizens will discuss the issue with the representatives of our strategic partnership.

Target groups

 

The project is addressed to seniors’ education organisations but as well to other professionals, carers and volunteers working with senior citizens. The latter are in close and direct contact with the senior citizens. However, they are usually not informed about the latest developments of ICT trainings. Our materials will provide them with an excellent source which they can use in their regular work with seniors to show and to explain which initiatives and programmes exist for older people to learn how to use online tools that improve their health and life quality.

Best Practice Database

Within “Ageing in the Digital Age” it has been gathered a number of projects from each partner-country (and outstanding projects from some other countries, too) that qualify as best practice examples. A short summary of each project will be provided in all partner-languages, longer description is available in English.

We would like to implement more best practice examples into our database. If you know of a project, programme, initiative or training material that sounds promising, please let us know. And now: please use our database-search and have a look at the various projects.

				

					
  • Best Practices types
    

  •  Target groups
    

  •  Thematic areas
    

  •  Language

Best Practice Catalogue

In this place you can find our Catalogues in which we gathered projects, programmes, initiatives, methods etc. that qualify as best practice examples in the field of Digital Competences of Seniors.

English version / German version / Polish version / Slovak version / Slovenian version