EPALE - Electronic Platform for Adult Learning in Europe

Advantages of online learning

Online adult learning provides a wide range of benefits. It can be organized in the comfort of your home, with the learner[1] not being physically bound to the institution in which the educational process occurs. Considering this, the learner can do their everyday tasks, work, spend time with their family and friends, and organize their free time in such a way as to strive for personal improvement and permanent education.

What digital and online learning allows is an individualized access to each person, in accordance with their abilities and preferences. This should definitely be utilized as a great advantage of individualization. It is necessary to go a step further and use individualization as the basis on which the interaction between the learners will be enhanced. Interaction provides better results and enables a successful implementation of the programs themselves. Learners would be connected via online platforms, based on their abilities and preferences, and would work together to pursue a common goal. Every person is an individual, but it is necessary to make use of the fact that he or she is also still a social being, accustomed to functioning within different social groups. Regardless of the fact that they are adults, interaction would still certainly produce satisfactory results, opening the door to many innovations that could be introduced in digital and online adult learning.

The root of the problem

There are different reasons as to why someone did not finish, or even start their education. It is necessary to carry out research, at the level of the entire Republic of Serbia[2], in order to find out what those reasons are, and deal with the problem at its root. The results obtained by this research would help to understand what represents the biggest obstacle, in order to be able to affect it. We can assume that reasons could be a difficult material situation in the family or the family's attitude towards education, both general and digital, that it’s something that’s unnecessary, but these speculations can be made indefinitely and do not lead us anywhere. New methods and approaches can be developed, especially given the age in which we live and the technology that surrounds us and is constantly evolving, but if we really want to solve the problem, we need to start from the beginning.

An example of the new approach is the Open Method of Coordination (OMC), established by the European Union in 2000, which represents the EU mechanism for establishing cooperation between member states in areas for which such a need exists[3]. Among these areas there is also adult education, as well as the field of digital skills and competences.

The focus of the work in this thematic group is to evaluate the quality of policies dealing with adult education, identifying the benefits and disadvantages in this field among EU member states, and proposing adequate solutions that can be found and that represent examples of good practice.

Special attention is paid to developing skills for the usage of information and communication technologies as a prerequisite for the inclusion of adults into the labor market, as well as to comprehensive social inclusion[4].

Understanding the reason leads to finding an adequate solution, appropriate to the real situation. Taking the opposite path, where the solution is found without having prior insight into the root of the problem, represents the starting point from which a vicious circle that leads nowhere will be formed. It will only seemingly lead to a solution, however that solution is short-lived.

The relationship between the society and learning

After that, it is necessary to break down the barrier between the way in which adult learning and digital adult literacy are viewed in society and what adult learning actually represents. We live in a society where education is accessible to everyone, where it is expected. With this in mind, it is quite understandable that the people who have not completed a certain degree of education or who are not digitally literate experience a sense of embarrassment, shame and a feeling of lesser value. It is necessary to become aware and to make it socially acceptable that the desire for education is nothing to be embarrassed about. Adults need to be encouraged about their own improvement, their courage (since it is indisputable that courage is required for such a step) turned into a brand and thus used to motivate others to follow in their footsteps.

UK organizes "Adult Learners' Week", and it is the largest annual learning festival there. Over 10,000 adults participate in activities organized within the "Adult Learners' Week" in Wales. The goal of this campaign is to raise awareness of the value of adult learning, celebrate the achievements of students and educators, and thus inspire more people to discover how learning can positively change their lives. This is achieved through working with a variety of private and public organizations, promoting free events, local activities and short courses to encourage adults across the country to return to learning.

The impressions of the "Adult Learners' Week" participants are similar to the following:

"I have created new friendships and gained self-confidence since I attended the event. It's nice to know that there is help available to adults, because adult learning can be forgotten about."

This campaign will be celebrated and promoted during June 2019, especially in the period from the 17th to the 23rd.[5]

Carrying out this type of campaign in our country would significantly contribute to the elimination of prejudices about adult education.

Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis [6]

The saying "A man learns while he is alive" should be taken rather literally and associated with institutional and digital education, and not just with "life experience", which traditionally is more associated with this phrase. The resistance to accepting new technologies and the opportunities they provide is noticeable among the elderly population.

This resistance manifests itself through a negative attitude towards everything that is new and difficult for the older population to understand. Often we can hear that in their time, "life was much simpler and that they were living quite decently, if not even better than today, without the use of technology." Although this is something that I can partly agree with, it is indisputable that every era brings changes with it, which we need to adapt to, in order to function normally in society, keep up with times, be informed and ready to accept the changes.

It's actually a fear of failure. Technology is something that the older population finds abstract. They are surrounded by a digitally literate young generation, a generation that finds it incomprehensible that someone living in the 21st century does not know how to use a smartphone, computer or the Internet. This attitude of the youth is understandable because they were born in the digital world, figuratively speaking "with a smart phone in their hand". It is necessary to educate them about the fact that the older population is not easily accustomed to a drastically digitized world and that it is necessary to have a lot of patience for them.

Likewise, if the elderly experience failure while trying to use the Internet, for example, they will often give up, get angry, and turn the blame on the one teaching them. In order to overcome this problem, it is necessary to enable initial success for the elderly, which will further motivate them, showing them that mastering digital technologies is not impossible and that they will succeed only if they make an effort and have patience. It is necessary to start with the most basic actions, such as, for example, booting up a computer. It is a good practice to note every step that they need to comply with in order to perform an action, for example, booting up a computer and opening a web browser. At the beginning they will keep notes when performing this kind of action, but little by little, this action, like all others that are being performed, will become automated and they will be able to implement it without any help in the form of notes or drawings.

It is necessary to keep up with the times, to accept the changes that they bring, especially when it comes to those changes that can make life, daily work and generally, our everyday existence easier. The labor market is also changing at a drastic rate. It’s becoming more digitized, new technologies which are being introduced, and this is why it is necessary to make adults capable of keeping up with the times. New technologies have great importance in adult education, especially when we look at the opportunities they provide.

Distance learning is certainly one of these possibilities. This method does not require the presence of learners and lecturers in the same room, which makes things easier for both sides[7]. A learner needs a computer and an Internet connection.

Nowadays, most people have a computer and access to the Internet, but even if they do not, various public institutions, such as libraries allow access to them.

In view of this fact, we can see the importance of digital adult education, as well as digital and online adult learning.

Digital versus general literacy

Digital literacy has become an important aspect of literacy in the last twenty, if not more years. For the coming generations, digital literacy will not be a problem, given that they are born into and grow up in a digitized society, which could be characterized by the syntagm "technologically-developing society". However, in order to function in such a society, adults also need to be digitally literate and aware of the importance of technology in the development of humanity. In reality, we are faced with the resistance of adults to technology, which is unfounded and is driven by the fact that, in their time, everything was much easier and simpler. It is precisely this resistance that prevents the understanding of the advantages that new technologies carry with them. Adults have to be given insight into the possibilities and importance of using new technologies. Only in this case, the syntagm "keeping up with the times" gets its full explanation and true meaning.

It is of great importance that educators, especially those working with younger primary school classes, provide insight into the possibilities, but also the need for using digital technologies in teaching. An image is worth a thousand words, but if sound is added to the picture, its value drastically increases. Nowadays, more than ever, different phenomena can be made approachable to learners, landscapes, places, scenes from other continents, which were not previously available. This opportunity should not only be used, but it is necessary to exhaust all the resources that it provides.

If a teacher is covering ecological content and wants to raise awareness about the importance of preserving the environment and using paper or linen bags in place of plastic ones, instead of talking to students about it without the use of any teaching materials, they can play a video clip on YouTube[8]. The analogy seen in the video, between animals helplessly stuck in plastic bags and people in the same situation is sufficient, but when the sound of difficult breathing is added in the background, this image gets its full scope and represents a powerful teaching tool, which can not be replaced by any frontal lecture on the behalf of the teacher. In addition, this clip provides plenty of room for discussion after watching it.

Furthermore, the use of digital technologies in teaching is an economic facilitation for teachers and all educational workers in general. If there is adequate digital equipment in the classroom, its use in teaching costs nothing, but gives immeasurably much.

Expanding the labor market

In order to realize the process of making adults digitally literate, it is necessary to include top experts from this field. In addition, young adult learners who are finishing their studies, and have at previous levels of their higher education acquired the necessary education from various subjects dealing with new technologies, can also be involved in adult literacy. In this way, young people would get involved in the work on digital adult education, gain experience, but also a cash compensation, which would greatly ease the costs of their study. Additionally, students could also be offered additional ECTS points for performing socially useful work, in order to be even more motivated to take part in these types of programs.

[1] An adult that is involved in learning, further referred to as a learner

[2] This research could be organized during the 2021 census of the population in the Republic of Serbia

[3] See at: https://erasmusplus.rs/vazno-za-sadrzaj-projekata/otvoreni-metod-koordi…

[4] See at: http://omk-obrazovanje.gov.rs/omk-u-srbiji/obrazovanje-odraslih/

[5] See at: http://www.learningandwork.wales/our-work/promoting-learning-and-skills…

[6] „The times are changing and we are changing with them”.

[7] Danimir Mandić, Internet tehnologije, Čigoja štampa, Belgrade, 2010.

[8] See at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaDx-WJAsaE