General information
| Name of the good practice | “Access to the digital world” |
| Name of the organisation or institution in charge of the project |
Cosmote.gr 50+ Hellas |
| Address, City | Several cities in Greece, in the Regions of Attica and Central Macedonia |
| Country | Greece |
| 1st project year | 2012 |
| Is the project ongoing? (time alive) | No |
| The good practice is to be found at (web.address) |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2lKi-GftmM https://www.protothema.gr/greece/article/670382/ilikiomenoi-exper-sto-diadiktuo/ |
| Website of the organisations | https://www.50plus.gr/el/ |
| info@50plus.gr |
Short description of the project, of the method
NGO “50+ Hellas”, with the support of Cosmote.gr, implemented from 2012 until 2018, a project called “Access to the digital world”.
The project was focusing to people over 50 years old, who wanted to acquire the basic digital skills they need, in order to be independent and improve their daily life. For this purpose, a big number of training programs for seniors were organised in several municipalities in Greece.
Since the beginning of the project in 2012 and until 2018, almost 10.000 people over 50 years old participated to the project and developed their digital skills, in thirteen Municipalities of the Region of Attica and to the city of Thessaloniki (Region on Central Macedonia)
People who participated to the training programs learned how to use tablets, internet, social media, e-mails, google maps, smartphones and other applications. This knowledge was very useful for them, as it made their daily life more easy and they were able to communicate with their families, even if they were far away from them.
Each training program was implemented by 2 teachers and 1 supervisor and lasted 16 hours. The modules of the training programs were:
- Introduction to new technologies
- Tablets
- Applications
- Internet (google, youtube, maps)
- Notepad
- E-mails
- Viber
- Calendar
At the end of each training program, trainees evaluated their experience (via an online questionnaire), so as organizers to know their opinion about the training procedure, if they gained the digital skills they needed during the lessons and if they believed that the methods the teachers used in order to teach them how to use new technologies were the correct ones.
Main goal was to see if the methods and techniques which teachers used were the most appropriate for seniors or if teachers needed to change the procedure.
Cosmote.gr was awarded in the contest “Hellenic Responsible Business Awards 2019” for this project (https://www.responsiblebusiness.gr/past-winners/ )
General objective
Main objectives of the project were:
- To help people over 50 years old to gain the basic digital skills they need, in order to be independent and improve their daily life
- Upgrade the digital skills of seniors
Target groups – participants
Target group to this project was people over 50 years old, who didn’t have any digital skills or they had few knowledge in how to use new technology.
For the recruitment of the participants NGO 50+ and municipalities did the following:
- Posts to several portals
- Posts to social media
- Articles to their websites
- Press releases
Which resources were necessary for the project?
For the implementation of the project, the following resources were necessary:
- Tablets to be used by the elders
- Classes for the IT lessons
- Wi-fi connection
Why it has been selected as good practice
“Access to the digital world” project has been selected as a good practice, for the following reasons:
- Project was focusing to people over 50 years old, who wanted to gain digital skills and learn how to use new technology. Slow Learning project also has as target group elders who want to learn how to use computers and new technology in their daily life (secondary target group).
- Elders who participated to the training programs which were organized, evaluated not only the procedure, but also the teaching techniques and methods which teachers used. As the main goal of Slow Learning project is to train IT teachers and experts how to teach new technology to seniors, there is a common perspective for both projects as they are focusing to the teaching methods which IT teachers should use during the training procedure.
Final comment
Access to digital skills is one of the five priorities on the Digital Athens Roadmap and as the mayor of the city says the most important. The same opinion also have other mayors in several cities in the Region of Attica and the Region of Central Macedonia. This is very important, because it shows the interest that authorities have, to upgrade the digital skills of the seniors. It is also very important the fact that the final evaluation to each training program of the “Access to the digital world” project was focusing to the teaching methods the teachers used and if they were the best ones for teaching new technologies to elders. Unfortunately, the results of the evaluations have not been published. However, it is important the fact that the project was focused not only to teach elders new technology, but also to evaluate the teaching methods which were used during the training procedure.
Finally, some of the results of the evaluation of the project are the following:
- 88% of the participants believe that Internet is a window to the knowledge and access to Internet gives freedom and equality
- 86% of the participants said that more people will wanted to use Internet, if access to it was easier
- 73% of the participants believe that after the knowledge they gain through the courses, they are able to have access to more information
- 67% of the participants said that after the training course they can easily communicate with their family and friends
- 54% of the participants believe that they have the ability to participate to more actions and activities that are taking place in the communities.
