The Grandparents on the Internet experience at the Giacomo Feltrinelli high school in Milan
The meetings of the digital literacy course for senior citizens continue at the Giacomo Feltrinelli high school in Milan. We would like to remind you that for the 2024-25 edition, Nonni su Internet was realised in synergy with the European project EngAGEd (Intergenerational Digital Engagement), with the aim of improving media literacy skills, linked to the conscious use of information and communication technologies, to fight misinformation and recognise misleading news [read the news Nonni su Internet on the school's website].
Trainer Tullia Romanelli tells us about the fifth training day, the first of the new year, with students acting as tutors for the over-65s.
‘Madam don't worry, we can reset your password’.
‘Sir look I'll show you how to recognise scam sites’.
‘How kind of you to accompany me in the lift’.
These are just some of the phrases with which the new year began at the Feltrinelli. By now students and grandparents have got to know each other, they know which senior is better with Gmail, who still has difficulties with Power Point. But just to make things more interesting and promote problem solving skills, the teachers in charge of the project have decided to change the pairs so that new students can work together with other grandparents.
But even in this air of novelty, some pairs remain unchanged, such as the one between a particularly well-prepared student and his grandmother to whom he tutored privately during the Christmas holidays and who now worries about correcting his Italian pronunciation because ‘it's true that you speak French and English better but I want to help you spell words in Italian’. So the lady pauses, turns around and asks him how to take a picture of the computer screen.
Learning in this course is not only intergenerational but multidimensional and the philosophy of ‘do ut des’ is here reinterpreted in a perspective of total gratuitousness in which the real wealth comes from learning all together without leaving anyone behind.
In this way, the children learn to develop patience and understanding and the grandparents entrust their own frailties to a new generation in an environment where every barrier crumbles with each new encounter.
