Learning & education can play a very important role in reducing age segregation, as it regulates imbalance between generations and opens up new opportunities for social inclusion to seniors.
Despite the fact that there is a need for providing better opportunities for education of seniors & intergenerational education & learning, education of the elderly is still a peripheral activity today, which is reflected in the development of theory and practice of this area (in particular, the development of programs and skills of education providers for seniors).
The training of seniors requires andragogically well-trained providers, who are familiar with the theory and practice of adult education, know the characteristics of the life course of the members of different age cohorts and those effects on the readiness for education, understand that seniors are an extremely diverse group of adults with very different needs and require tailor-made approaches and modes of work in educational programs.
The main problem that IT educators are facing is that they don’t have the needed skills and competences to educate seniors in new technology. Educators of elderly, and specifically IT educators, need knowledge of seniors and contemporary image of old age in society. On one hand they are aware that older people are not all the same, that they are very different, that they are more different from each other than different members of the younger generations, but on the other hand they also know, they lack knowledge both in theory and practice on better working methods with this target group. Lot of teachers are more pedagogues (school system of teaching) than andragogists with merely basic knowledge on working methods for seniors.
The Objectives
Main objectives of the project are:
- Better understanding of senior expectations & needs in learning environments, focusing on IT
training; - Improved knowledge & use of pedagogical tools, new technology in educating seniors;
- Exchange of good practice among partners;
- Create the basic theoretical foundations for the implementation of education of IT to seniors;
- Get to know seniors as an extremely diverse group of adult learners for whom education is being prepared according to their needs and for them
Target Groups
Primary target groups of the project are adult educators, teachers, mentors, trainers, professionals in IT, who will:
- gain necessary awareness, knowledge and pedagogical tools;
- develop key competences for working with seniors
- adopt practical skills for increasing the quality and efficiency of the implementation of non-formal IT programs for seniors
Secondary target group are seniors who will be impacted with an increased accessibility to nonformal IT learning activities, especially adapted to their needs & expectations.
Results
Short description of the results:
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Compendium of existing innovative and effective practices and tools in teaching technology to seniors
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Job Profile of IT trainers of seniors
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Training programme for IT trainers
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Video for sharing the successful experiences by teachers and seniors
Impact of slowlearning project
Impact envisaged and the potential longer term benefits of slowlearning project for ΙΤ trainers of seniors:
- Created tools will remain within the work culture of the organizations involved and will become a new way to implement strategic actions aiming at the building of professional job profile for IT trainers of older people
- Training methodologies and tools will be available on the website and in the community of educational providers and IT professionals. They can be used, replicated or adapted to new forms in unpredictable ways, reaching an indefinite number of people
- The network of this project will also become a space where the organizations will be able to share its best practices, tools, methodologies and difficulties and its obtained results.
