Third party funded individual grant
Acronym: SenGuide
Start date : 01.12.2020
End date : 31.05.2023
Website: https://senguide.ili.eu/
The number of older people is rising in all European countries and the time people spend in retirement with good health conditions is also. At the same time, the interest and desire among older adults to participate in further education increases, too. In all European countries there are efforts to enable ageing well; still, many activities for seniors are designed with attendance and thus remain out of reach for several people, among others older adults with mobility restrictions, family commitments, or people from rural areas. Additionally, older people are mostly seen as recipients of activities but not actively involved when it comes to developing educational offers. Although the need for online learning opportunities is more and more recognized, education providers often do not know how to implement them in a way that meets best the needs of older learners. Experiences and systematic knowledge on the use of learning platforms by older adults are rare.With regard to the above-mentioned points, SenGuide has two far-reaching objectives. On the one hand, the project aims at giving older people the opportunity to both engage in further education and share their knowledge and skills online. Seniors with basic or medium ICT skills shall be supported in creating their own multimedia enriched material in an e-learning platform and share these with other older people. Topics are not limited to IT but can contain everything that older adults would like to learn, e.g. history, handcraft skills, gardening, and philosophy. This approach is innovative as usually teachers and trainers are people of working age and not older adults themselves. On the other hand, the improvement of knowledge and further gain in experience about the use of learning management systems by older learners and older authors is intended. Up to now, there is hardly any (systematic) knowledge about which framework conditions are necessary, how the implementation can look like, and what success factors are. As transnational project, the promotion of interregional and European networking and cooperation among seniors is also aimed at.The activities of the project will be centered on two main intellectual outputs, namely 1) Authoring training for the creation of digital content, 2) Guide for practitioners and facilitators in adult education. In the project 15 older adults will be trained to become authors of digital content in which they share their knowledge, skills, and experiences. Considerably more older adults will be directly involved in project activities through testing and evaluating the developed materials. In the survey implementation at least 85 older people are foreseen for participation. In addition to that, more than 130 practitioners and stakeholders from senior organizations and education institutions will be reached through multiplier events.
The project contributes to research, innovation and internationalization in adult education, strengthens cooperation between seniors, raises the level of key competences and skills, stresses active participation in a European society, increases opportunities for further development of older adults, and helps to give everyone the chance to participate in education activities. Strongly included is an emphasis on EU 2020 goals (improving the quality and efficiency of education and training, enhancing creativity and innovation at all levels of education and training, making lifelong learning a reality).The project consortium consists of five organizations working with and for older adults and experienced in training and adult education. It is led by the Innovation in Learning Institute at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany), and includes Silver Thread (Ireland), Jaume I University (Spain), Tulip Foundation (Bulgaria), and German National Association of Senior Citizens' Organizations (Germany).