@daptation

Our Practice at Age Action Ireland

Where do courses take place?

At Age Action’s training room in the centre of Dublin and libraries, community centres, corporate offices, and housing complexes for older people throughout the country.

What is delivered?

The Getting Started programme which has been prepared for 2 levels – Beginners and Improvers

The content of the courses can be found on line http://www.ageaction.ie/getting-started/publications-and-research

Teaching is learner centered and addresses the needs of each learner

How is training delivered?

1. By volunteer tutors of all ages on a 1:1 basis. A 2 hour lesson is delivered once a week over a period of 3-8 weeks (depending on the venue)

2. By Presentations to a group of learners on a general subject e.g. shopping online

Partners

Age Action has partnered organisations in both the private and public sector. In partnership with Dublin City Council it has delivered the Getting Started programme in day centres outreaching seniors in the community

In 2011 it assisted Google in compiling and setting up the website www.getyourfolksonline.ie

It is involved in research with Galway University around the concept of intergenerational learning

ENTER ry, ICT Association for Seniors, was founded in 1997 in Helsinki.  Today it counts above 200 members, mostly pensioners living in the Helsinki Capital Region, who are interested in maintaining and learning new skills in ICT.  For our members we organize lectures on different topics on ICT and arrange visits to interesting places, museums, banks, the Parliament, companies like Nokia, etc.

An important part of our activity is the volunteer work, peer-to-peer guidance on computer and cell phone use.  In the association there are some 20 active tutors on PC guidance and about the same number of volunteers helping seniors on cell phone use.

We cooperate closely with Helsinki City Library, Helsinki City Social Services Department and its Service Centres, the Finnish Adult Education Center of the City of Helsinki and a number of others.  Our main venue for PC guidance during the last couple of years has been the Meeting Point at Lasipalatsi, a unit of Helsinki City Library, in the city center.  There we give individual help about PC questions every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, at 11-14, with 2 - 3 tutors at a time.

Besides the information on our website, we have announcements on the walls of the Senior Service Centers, and from time to time ads in the newspapers of the hours and places when and where the guidance takes place.  

ENTER has consulting hours once or several times a week when elderly people are free to come with their questions, and with their own laptops, if they wish. The service is open and free of charge for all, not only for the members of ENTER. Typical issues are how to set up a Gmail-account,  pay bills online, how to set up security safeguards on a laptop, and so on.

The individual peer-to-peer consulting is the main, and the most effective, working method. Some group courses on  IT skills are also organized each year in different locations in the Helsinki area.  

Another important role of the organization is to keep up to date with developments around the information society, ensuring that the technology and associated services in Finland are readily available / accessible to elderly people. ENTER is a member of different organisations in this area, e.g. Kansalaisareena, Citizen Forum .  

Seniors Initiatives Centre (SIC) is an association of older adults established in 2007. The organization operates at a local level in Kaunas, the second largest town in Lithuania. We are focused on active aging – an approach to aging that helps older adults live as fully as possible within all dimensions of wellbeing (i.e., physical, social, environmental, vocational, intellectual, emotional and spiritual) and provides its members with education, information, resources and tools.

Currently the organization is not based on membership. SIC acts as a contact point assisting institutions, research centres and commercial undertakings to reach the target audience. The organization partners with higher education institutions and arranges lectures, courses and activities for older adults, many of which are funded through programs administered by national agencies of European Social Fund, EU lifelong learning program, Lithuanian Ministry of Social Security and Labour, Kaunas City Social Services Department. Courses are open to all older adults in town and are advertised on the organization’s website, through partner network, newspaper ads and direct e-mailing. These are mainly limited-enrolment courses and are subject to registration.

SIC has organized several ICT courses for novices and advanced learners where we administered the project (collected groups, rented classrooms, contracted trainers, collected feedback and analysed the outcomes). From the feedback and interviews with older adult learners we have noticed the need for a more diverse approach in teaching digital literacy skills to seniors. SIC aims to break down resistance of seniors to learn ICT skills with innovative and holistic programmes which address their needs and make the learning process enjoyable.

SIC initiated the learning partnership project @daptation to gain more experience in this field. Observation of Age Action and Enter ry practice in Dublin and Helsinki served as an impetus to introduce peer-to-peer guidance and promote volunteering in digital literacy training. Currently learners and trainers meet for 1-hour per week sessions in an internet cafe. A course for volunteer trainers is under development and pre-enrolment interviews are being held.

Foundation of the II University of the Third Age in Łódź started at the initiative of Grażyna Frontczak in 2005 conducts educational, recreational and remedial activities for senior citizens through lectures and workshops, charity work, health education, popularization of sport and active lifestyle, taking care of abandoned cats and dogs. We deliver open lectures in medicine, art, culture and have workshops in the following sections: plastic arts, computer science, gymnastics, water aerobics and swimming, music, toursim and nordic walking. We also run French and English courses for older adults.  

ICT worhshops are hed for small groups on four different levels.

 We stress the importance of practical exercises, limiting the theoretical knowledge to the indispensable minimum. During the workshops students share their knowledge and skills as often as they make use of the teacher’s help. Because students are aware of their own problems with using computers, they often intuitively find better ways of conveying information to others. It is noticed, that the mutual help and exchange of skills and knowledge to the great extent eliminates initial feeling of embarrasment caused by the little experience with using ICT.