2 min.
From digital beginners to web pioneers: the over-sixty citizens of Belgium, Italy, Romania and Spain have taken leaps and bond thanks to a 30-hour digital literacy course held by the new generations. The elders now know how to navigate the web, chat and use the on-line services of local administrations.
These are the results of Project Silver, Stimulating ICT Learning for Active EU Elders, coordinated by the Fondazione Mondo Digitale as part of the Grundtvig community action programme for lifelong learning.
Over 1000 elders, 500 student tutors and 50 coordinating teachers participated in the initiative. The results of the project were presented during the course of the "New Technologies and Challenge for Active Ageing” Conference.
More than 90% of the elderly who attended the courses indicate that they would like a new session and more than 70% habitually navigate the web. Half of the participants have started their own profile on social networks. Moreover, many of the young tutors are still in touch with their elderly students and 70% of them would like to repeat this experience.
The most interesting data regards the contents and skills acquired in the area of interactive services: i.e., before the course, only 26% of the 60 Belgian seniors had basic knowledge about e-government services, while after the 30-hour course, 60% of the elderly had the skills necessary to download documents and request certificates (excellent/good level) and 38% had reached a satisfactory level.
At the outset of the project, only 5% of Italian seniors were acquainted with e-banking, but, by the end of the course, 70% had reached a good or excellent proficiency at using on-line e-banking services. And how do web pioneers choose to be informed? By the end of the course, 97% of the participants joined one or more web-based newsletters.
