2 min.
The over-sixties who attended the Grandparents on the Internet course at the Leonardo da Vinci School in Ciampino (Rome) practically enjoyed individual lessons. The two coordinating teachers managing the project, Eleonora Giordani e Giorgio Conte, organised flexible lessons to adapt to the different needs and levles of their adult students. The tutors paid attention to their students’ needs and difficulties and prepared the course contents to meet each individual’s needs – a significant result given the age of the tutors: ten and eleven years old.
“One of the elders, for example,” Prof. Giordani recounts to Elisa Amorelli (Press Officer for the Fondazione Mondo Digitale), “started from scratch and felt very uncomfortable at the beginning of the course, but thanks to the help of Andrea, her tutor, she overcame all her problems and now is quite familiar with basic computer operations. At the end of the course, the student tutors gave their elderly students a “final exam”: the grandparents had to format and save texts by following a series of instructions. Luisa’s result was excellent and Andrea was very proud of her.”
The course taught the elders to navigate through the web portals of the public administration and how to use service portals such as those provided by the National Rail Service to book or purchase tickets, but they also learnt how to consult recipes or find instructions for emergency repairs to dishwashers! Another topic of great interest concerned social aspect of the Internet and how to keep in touch with distant friends and relatives.
Prof. Giordani considers this an active experience and not only for the elderly. Even the less motivated and scholastically proficient students proved to enjoy the course and participated actively!
The final event of Grandparents on the Internet, which was held on May 12th, was inserted as one of the schools end of year events and featured the participation of school administrator Ivana Uras and the Fondazione Mondo Digitale Schools Coordinator, Romano Santoro.
