SPIDW is an Eramus+ project, coordinated by EureCons Förderagentur GmbH, Germany  SPIDW is an Eramus+ project that includes partners experienced or in touch with older people:

AidLearn, Portugal

PRO-MED, Poland

Slovenska univerza za tretje življenjsko obdobje, Slovenia                                                                                         

Balkanska Agenciya za Ustoychivo Razvitie, Bulgaria

Spolupracou pre lepsiu buducnost – VM, Slovakia                                                                                                         

Association for Intercultural Dialogue, Romania

ABOUT THE SPIDW PROJECT

How can one expect that learners get digitally skilled  if  adult educators and programme developers do not  incorporate ICT tools in their daily work and educational programmes?

The SPIDW project is concerned with ICT tools (digital devices, applications, media etc.) but  these do not suffice without eveloping  ICT skills of both educators and learners.

The project is focused on the incorporation of ICT tools into older adult education, both teaching and learning. In adult education programs ICT tools are badly needed meeting a variety of learners’ needs; to develop  written and oral communication skills, to impact communicative competence, to  collect, generate and disseminate information. ICT integrated activities together with the use of instant messaging tools and media improve older learners’ oral and written proficiency, cognitive and cultural skills, simultaneously

decreasing the digital divide.

WHAT ARE ICT TOOLS AND METHODS

ICT tools are not just applications. They consist of hardware, software, networks and media.

In the SPIDW project partners are learning about a variety of digital educational activities, methods and approaches. They are exchanging their knowledge and skills that  have been validated in real life educational activities and situations, sharing  information and lessons learnt;  how to create a web TV, how to use digital City Games. how to produce a short featured or  documentary film. The project  is based on a presumption that if adult educators get genuinely inspired by such methods and practices, they, can inspire their older learners in their turn.

DIGITAL CITY GAMES IS A PLAYFUL EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY

Most inspiring for Slovenian Third Age University members was a method presented by the Polish partner in the meeting in Augsburg called City Games introducing a ludic , playful, narrative, humorous and even satirical educational activity focused on a city. The method  was not completely new to them.

Slovenian U3A's educators had learned  similar, but not digital activities before. Directed to different places in Bad Urach, they were received by experts (an informed resource). They  talked to them, learned a lot, filled in a questionnaire upon returning to the lecture room. Transformed into a digital  activity,  City Games do no require direct  contact with an invited  interlocutor ( a baker in a bakery,  a custodian in a museum, an  official  at municipality, etc.) Learners are directed to different places in the town, not necessarily sights! Being  invited to obtain information from people employed in different institutions, from  passers- by, from Internet. they are on their own taking pictures, using their smart phones…they can take  pictures of buildings, public spaces, inscriptions, they can incorporate leaflets, whatever…Exercising their critical thinking skills, various thinking processes,  they use their creative and design skills etc.  In doing so, applications like Power point, Canva, etc. are a great asset.  They combine  fragmentary information,  stemming from a variety of quite different sources, into a kind of illustrated questionnaire or puzzle to be shared. with other learners. who have been  directed to other places. The group learns about the city, practicing learning by doing, collaborative learning, learning in subgroups and group learning, digital learning. etc.

Presented by the Polish partner during the first transnational meeting in Augsburg, City Games were highly inspirational for the Slovenian partner and therefore quickly reused in their training the trainers specialized in older adult education.

SPIDW Contract number: 2018-1-DE02-KA204-0o5076

Duration: 1.10.2018 – 30.9.2020

Dr. Dušana Findeisen is a teacher of English and French language and literature and  andragogue. On her own or jointly with her colleagues she introduced a fair number of innovations in theory and practice in the field of adult education: socio-cultural animation and education for local development, older adult education, Slovenian Third Age University, Summer School for Adult Educators. She contributed to the development of study circles in Slovenia, she co-funded the journal Andragogic Perspectives and is on its editorial board.  For five years she was an Age Platform Europe expert in the field of employment and education of older people, and an external expert of the European Commission in this field. So far she has coordinated and delivered about twenty-five transnational projects. She is currently the Head of the Institute for Research and Development of Education at Slovenian Third Age University. She is vice-president of DANET, Danube Networkers for Europe. She publiahed 5 monographs and several hundred articles. Research areas: community education, older adult education, dyslexia in adults, diversity in companies, but also burn out at work, identity at work, migrations and migrants, integrated counselling for older adults, film education in adult education, pre-reitrement education, socially engaged education of older workers, digital inclusion versus digital exclusion, functional illiteracy, etc. So far she has published 5 monographs and hundreds of articles.