seniors | Target groups | Ageing in the Digital Age

Digital Coalition

The Digital Coalition builds on the original idea of the European Commission, first presented to the world in 2013 as the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs. In Slovakia, this initiative was taken up by the IT Association of Slovakia together with our Ministry of Investment, Regional Development and Informatization of the Slovak Republic and on 27 September 2017, the National Coalition for Digital Skills and Jobs – Digital Coalition initiative was born.

Its goal is to mobilize despite the spectrum of public, private, academic and civil society organizations and institutions in Slovakia for the improvement of digital skills of citizens, IT specialists, all employees and in education. Members join the Digital Coalition voluntarily and free of charge with their own commitments to manage the digital transformation of society. At the same time, each member undertakes to contribute to the promotion of the topic of digital transformation in their area of operation, within their respective capabilities, and to assist in the development of a study on the impact and preparedness for digital transformation. Currently, the Digital Coalition has 83 members who have collectively declared 232 commitments.

Source: https://digitalnakoalicia.sk/

Access date: 04.11.2021

Improving the digital skills of seniors

Through the project “Improving the digital skills of seniors“, MIRRI SR will help seniors to navigate new technologies, learn how to use them or improve their IT skills. The project, for which EUR 69.4 million has been allocated, includes not only face-to-face and e-learning training, but also the provision of data connectivity and the distribution of senior tablets or other devices (such as laptops and smartphones) to trained seniors who join the project and express interest in technical support.

Improving the digital skills of seniors is part of the Recovery and Resilience Plan of the Slovak Republic, for which MIRRI SR has prepared the Digital Slovakia component to support cybersecurity, digital economy, eGovernment and digital skills.

The project is currently in the preparatory phase. The Ministry is negotiating with third age universities, primary and secondary schools, municipalities, as well as civic associations working with seniors. The Ministry of Informatization plans to launch the first phase of digital training for seniors in the spring of 2022. Several thousand seniors could be trained as early as next year.

The target group of this project is citizens belonging to disadvantaged groups:

Public administration employees over 55 years of age (the created environment will enable online testing and improvement of digital skills of public administration employees meeting the definition of disadvantaged population groups and at the same time will verify the possibility of later use also in the selection process and support for updating digital skills during the duration of the civil servant relationship, public employment contract),
Disabled and old-age pensioners who do not belong to the category of senior citizens (under 65 years of age, with an invalidity or old-age pension),
Seniors (population of post-working age, i.e. over 65 years of age),
Persons with disabilities.

Source: https://www.mirri.gov.sk/aktuality/digitalna-agenda/vicepremierka-remisova-seniorom-pomozeme-vstupit-do-digitalneho-sveta-vdaka-bezplatnym-skoleniam-aj-specialnym-tabletom/index.html

Access date: 04.11.2021

IT course for seniors

The IT course for seniors focused on the development of information technology skills for seniors, through which they could improve their skills in working with a computer, tablet or smartphone, get acquainted with modern technologies and use them to improve the quality of their lives.

The main motivation for the creation of the activity was an indirect request from the community, but also from the 1st Private Gymnasium in Bratislava itself. The Gymnasium has long been trying to open up the school community to the wider environment, with the aim that pupils and students will meet ordinary people and experience a different environment than the one at home or school. In this way, the school creates and seeks out situations and contacts where pupils leave their comfort zone and meet people who are disadvantaged and live in different circumstances to them.

The 1st Private Gymnasium in Bratislava was awarded the Engaged School label for its project “IT course for seniors” as a finalist in the first national award in 2020.

The school’s award-winning activity focused on helping seniors in the Bratislava – Ružinov district. It also responded to an article in the monthly magazine Ružinovské echo of the municipal district, which described the great interest of pensioners at the Ružinov Local Authority in IT education. In cooperation with the local authority, the school identified a group of seniors and approached them with an offer of a course focused on the development of IT skills. Each senior had one pupil who was also their personal assistant.

Source: https://angazovanaskola.sk/ocenene-projekty/it-kurz-pre-seniorov

Access date: 04.12.2020

Colabor Active

The project “COLABOR-ACTIVE: Development of a training program for enhancing Active Ageing through Not-For-Profit Sharing Economy” is launched with the main objective of increasing the competences (attitudes, skills, knowledge) of Elder Persons and their Communities, about how to enhance active ageing through not-for-profit sharing economy through an innovative training program.

Results of the project are:

Co-created Methodological Guide with the direct participations of End Users.
Training Materials for creating and improving the critical competences.
Designed Experiential Training Activities for enhancing the practical and experiential training.
Development of an e-Training Platform.
Creation of 4 SHARING-ACTIVE UNITS.

Training is available on the link: https://platform.colabor-active.eu/

Source: https://colabor-active.eu/

Access date: 04.12.2020

60+ Virtual Culture

60+ Virtual Culture was an international initiative in which 4 partner organizations of similar background in informal education, including education of seniors, from Poland, France, Czech Republic and Italy have worked together to improve and optimize educational offer for elderly concerning their digital competences within the context of culture accessibility.

The process of optimization has been developed in two stages. First, each organization appointed one teaching tandem (young ICT educator and one experienced senior (50+) educator) who took part in 3 Joint Staff Trainings, during which based on exchanged practices and knowledge, an educational model for local senior centers or libraries had been developed. Therefore, an innovative offer of ICT courses for seniors aiming at encouraging older people to participate in culture resources and cultural events using new technologies (e.g. accessing e-books, audio-books, visiting virtual museums, buying tickets online, creating and uploading content etc. ) was created. Simultaneously so created teaching program was implemented, tested and adjusted during two cycles of ICT workshops for seniors in each country. The teaching tandems provided during the project a total of 198 hours of workshops for 105 seniors in four countries. Additionally, from among the participants of workshops 8 Digital Ambassadors were selected – people at the age of 60+ whose leadership and digital competences enabled us to include them into dissemination process and in some cases into the process of supporting the trainers in the teaching processes both during and after the termination of project activities.

Results:

Lesson plans of ICT Workshops for Older Adults:

online newspapers,
books on-line (e-book and audiobook),
music and films online,
going out- cultural event,
monuments of the world- visiting historical places abroad.

Tips for trainers. How to approach seniors during ICT trainings.

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission under Erasmus+ Programme.

Source: https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/projects/search/details/2016-1-PL01-KA204-026593

Access date: 14.10.2021

Silver

The main objective of the SILVER project is to create and implement a distance training which would help to improve skills and employability of people over 50 years old. Project´s mission is to support the discussion with all the relevant stakeholders (employers, training institutions, career advisors), to identify the constraints of seniors in access to qualification and employment and expand the lifelong learning and “silver economy” concepts in companies and training organizations.

The primary objective of the project is to improve qualifications and competences of 50+ people by creating and implementing an innovative training. To create a training which will match the requirements of this target group, they conducted a research and discussed it with relevant stakeholders and seniors.
The training should help people over 50 years old to become more confident when looking for a job or when trying to (re)integrate on the labour market.

Source: https://silver-skills.eu

Access date: 04.12.2020

EFOS

EFOS was founded in 1990 at Bressanone (Italy) by Mr. Leopold Auinger from Innsbruck (Austria) with its Headquarters at Brussels and its General Office in Austria. The aim of EFOS is the protection of the interests of older students in universities in Europe. Since its foundation EFOS has had international meetings twice a year in various European countries. EFOS is in contact with the UN in Vienna (a representative of EFOS is a member of the “Committee on Ageing”) and with AIUTA (International Association of the Universities of the Third Age).

Aims of EFOS:

– Promoting high level education of older people alongside younger students or at special academies/universities for older people

– Fostering of joint projects for older students throughout Europe

– Fostering and securing the access of older people, including those without formal qualifications, to education at the highest level

– Representing the interests of academic education for older people in politics and society

– Fostering of autonomous national organizations with similar goals

– Identifying possibilities of using the skills and expertise of older students for the benefit of science and society

– Cooperating with other international organizations that support lifelong learning (LLL).

Members: Institutions and individual senior students in the following countries: Austria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden, Switzerland. At this moment (2020) EFOS has 19 institutional and 19 individual members.

Source: https://www.efos-europa.eu/

Access date: 04.12.2020

SeLiD – Senior’s Learning in the Digital Society

The project Senior´s Learning in the Digital Society (SeLiD) has been approved as an Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership for the period 1 September 2019 – 31 August 2021. The project is carried out by 8 partners from European universities. Comenius University Centre for Continuing Education Bratislava is the coordinator.

The main objectives are open education and innovative practices in a digital era, focusing on improving and extending high quality learning opportunities for digital technologies and ICT, tailored to the needs of individual low-skilled or low-qualified adults.

The project concentrates on learning and training of basic ICT skills and key digital competences of the elderly. Methods that will be applied are: classical teaching, group learning and training, peer learning, work with manuals, excursions to the shops with electronics, collection of good practices to develop digital literacy and skills of the elderly.

Source: https://selid.efos-europa.eu

Access date: 04.12.2020

The Silver Code

Living both in a rapidly developing digital world and in aging society, the Silver Code project goal is to make older learners active players and citizens, equipped with competences required by our hyper connected world.

The main Silver Code project objective is to increase the digital literacy of older learners and offer basic knowledge and skills in coding.

Older EU citizens from the 27 EU countries are both the target group, reached through direct activities (30 learners per partner country will take part in the training activities), and direct beneficiaries, reached through peer-to-peer learning methods and dissemination events (about 100 people per partner country). A relevant number of participants, among older people, will be medium-high skilled, such as retired professionals and older people being professionally active and willing to improve their knowledge and competencies.

This will be reached through:

The development of a training course, delivered by professional trainers (for theory and general supervision) and youngsters, possibly ICT students, expert on coding, acting as “tutors”(for the practical sessions).
Creation of a “Silver Coding” community based on tools such as platform, forum, social network groups.

Source: https://www.utzo.si/en/projekti/silver-code/

Access date: 30.09.2021

SPERO – Social Communication Platform for Seniors

Seniors living in their home face a great risk of loneliness. The risk is much higher when the extended family is not living in the same house. Usually they are linked to the local environment through church visits, doctor visits, grocery shop, newspapers and television. The project develops an innovative social communication platform and end-user device designed for seniors who can easily communicate to everybody who joins the platform. They are able to read news; they can be immediately informed on the local events, sport activities, clubs’ activities. It can be used also as a reminder. The end-user device is designed to have only five buttons. It is connected to TV since it is senior’s prime display in the house. By implementing new communication channel to seniors, and sourcing multiple digital communication channels of senior’s friends, family, local community and care organization, we can tackle the social isolation problem raised by the introduction of the digital communication in the society.

Source: Development Centre oft he Heart of Slovenia

Access date: 12.12.2021