[Grandparents & Grandsons]

eLearning 2006 programme
contract n. 2006-4529/001 – 001 ELE ELEB11

Project description

The project, supported by local authorities, associations and public and private organizations, is addressed to people aged over 55. It is intended, through the involvement of students of VET or upper secondary schools in the role of volunteer “digital facilitators”, to teach internet browsing and e-mail use to the elders, fostering thus their active digital citizenship role.

The main goal is to exploit and transfer at European level a low cost methodology of intergenerational involvement aimed to increase adult digital literacy promotion.

What we are working for 

• Adult digital literacy improvement to promote and facilitate active citizenship: we intend to foster a process of local stakeholders involvement in low cost training activities aimed to develop the adult’s digital literacy levels thus allowing over 55 people to gain full citizenship in the digital society.

• Activation of a training environment able to encourage inter-generational dialogue: the involvement of secondary upper school, VET and university students in the role of volunteer “digital educators” make of this ICT learning approach a tool to foster the encounter and crossing between generations. It will also allow inter-generational training strategies analysis and development.

• Linguistic diversity and specific contents to address cultural issues: the project respects Europe’s linguistic diversity, producing results in several languages and appropriately addresses cultural issues and specific didactical contents taking in account the characteristics of the elders and of the Internet services vailable in each country. The exploitation of the results will be further increased by the start-up of a virtual community, among experts and local coordinators, to share experiences through a cooperative learning approach.

• Modular approach to guarrantee high rate of transferability: it will be ensured mainly by the modularability of the training units and the possible application in every European country with very little adaptation (the latter concerning the contents of the on-line services provided locally).

• Low cost & local stakeholders to allow high level of sustainability: guaranteed by the low level of investments required to launch the initiative and to the easy adaptation of the products to new contexts, places and periods of time (all materials must be in the local languages). We want to identify the actors concerned and inform them of ways and means of using e-learning for promoting digital literacy and thereby contribute to strengthening social cohesion and personal development.

PROJECT IDEA

The project’s dream is to foster a process of local stakeholders involvement in low cost training activities aimed to develop the adult’s digital literacy levels thus allowing over 55 people to gain full citizenship in the digital society.

The basic idea of the G&G initiatives is to let the youngsters traing the elders in the basics of internet, e-mail.

The initiative has a strong local characterization, and implies the involvement and committment of local stakeholders and sponsors, local schools and students, local elderly citizens.

The objectives of the training are very simple: basic internet browsing, basic email communication, basic access to on-line services provided by local institutions/companies.

The training seminars carried out by the "grandsons" are very short and made on a one-to-one (one grandson tutors one grandparent); further activities of self training carried out by the "grandparents" in the laboratories are foreseen to allow the elderly to learn by doing with their own pace.

The training flow follows a simple scheme:

A tutor trains the grandsons

In each school, partner of the G&G initiative, groups of volunteer students adhere to the project, thus being trained to take the part of “grandsons”.

They are trained by a tutor, which will assist them also in their training activities with the “grandparents”, about the aged adults training methodes and about the ICT contents to be taught.

Each grandson trains a grandparent

In each school, partner of the G&G initiative, an ICT laboratory connected with internet is available. In the laboratory each "grandson" teaches to one "grandparent" :

• how to access and browse the internet
• how to use e-mail to communicate on-line 
• how to access local on-line services available on internet

The grandparent practice alone in a laboratory

In each school partner of the G&G initiative, a laboratory is made available, for free (when unused for current activity), for further practicing by the grandparents.

The "grandparents" have access to the on-line training resources made available on the G&G multilingual website.

G&G local initiative set-up

The G&G initiative set up and organization is very simple and strightforward: