Practical Training in Computer and Internet Usage

Short Description

Lifelong learning of people of every age group, also old adults, is not a luxury but a social necessity. The method serves to consolidate or apply knowledge, skills and competencies in practice. It consists of deliberately carrying out certain actions and repeating them in order to form and improve one or other skills and habits. The character and the methodology of their application depend on the specific curriculum, as well as on the level of preparation and development of elderly learners.

Main goals:

To create a new world which matches contemporary science and new technologies achievements with personal competencies, knowledges, skills, experience, abilities and specific qualifications of old adults.

To create conditions for intergenerational learning aimed at computer searching and using information in education subject areas which are of interest to old adults from the Danube Region.

The subject areas:

Computer and Internet Usage.
Healthy Lifestyle.
Bulgarian and Foreign Cultural-historical Heritage – Travelling from the Past to the Future.
Solidarity between Generations – a Message to the Future.

Stages:

Stage/Step 1: Selection of trainers –university student volunteers and university experts in Informatics Education

Stage/Step 2: Deciding on the main practical training topics according to the four subject areas which are of interest to the old adults

Stage/Step 3: Introducing the members of the Union of Pensioners to the main topics of the practical training

Stage/Step 4: Selection of 30 senior participants from different clubs

Stage/Step 5: Logistics

Stage/Step 6: Delivering the practical training

Stage/Step 7: Closing the training with presentations of the trainees’ individual work

Stage/Step 8: Getting feedback

Outputs:

2 books on the DASUN project results in Bulgarian and in English languages developed by the project researcher

1 scientific paper developed by the project researcher and presented at a scientific conference

Many education materials and presentations, collected and developed by the participants

Project website in English and German languages

University website in Bulgarian

Many reports developed by the project researcher

Results:

Provided the opportunity to the old adults to be educated in a new world of contemporary science and new technologies, to deepen their communicative competencies and to implement the newly-acquired competencies, knowledge, skills, experience, and abilities in new, meaningful tasks.

Developed university-based educational program for continuing education of old adults and made it accessible to the public in cooperation with education and cultural heritage associations in the Danube region.

Built a basis for future co-operation and a network of educational institutions and NGOs in the Danube region.

Target group: old adults

Age group: 55+

Gender: mixed

Pedagogical Information

The practical training in Computer and Internet Usage has the following characteristics:

It is conducted simultaneously by 15 instructors – university students who train 30 older adults in a computer room;
A university lecturer participates only as a mentor for the students;
The training is the result of a preliminary survey of the educational needs of the elderly in the Ruse region which identified their desire for the acquisition and utilization of ICT knowledge, skills, and competences, as well as their desire for intergenerational exchange;
The tasks set in the educational process are related to other topics that have been identified as important to the elderly within the framework of the survey.
The training ends with an independent assignment (developing materials related to the educational topics) and presenting it on the scheduled day.

European Dimension

The method provided the opportunity to the old adults to be educated in a new world of contemporary science and new technologies, to deepen their communicative competencies and to implement the newly acquired competences, knowledge, skills, experience, and abilities in new, meaningful tasks. The European topics included in the method are: Diversity, Freedom, Solidarity, Heritage, Human rights, Democracy (political participation), Social inclusion.

Applied in projects

Danube Seniors’ Universities

The main objective of the initiative is to ensure the strengthening of the role of third age people in the process of civil dialogue on all levels, exchange of ideas and knowledge between the generations, nations and cultures, aiming at improving the regional and local level social environment in the Danube countries by organizing qualified continuing education.