These are the topics we focus on with our project “Back to the Future – Seniors acting as Digital Storyteller Gurus” (2024-1-LT01-KA220-ADU-000252189). The partners are: VSI EDUKACINIAI PROJEKTAI (EDUPRO) from Lithuania, Creativity and Educational Studio “ARTIED” from Bulgaria, Associação Rede de Universidades da Terceira Idade from Portugal, EDUCOMMART from Greece and Inthecity Project Development B.V. from the Netherlands.
The project’s overall objective is to improve life-long learning opportunities and to build confidence of elders (60+) for active ageing and socialisation through creating and sharing personal digital stories and exploring the means of social media to stay connected with their peers, families and other generations.
During the project:
I) We will develop Social Media Content Creation Learning Programme, Mentorship Tutorials and Silver Surfer Digital Badges. They will help seniors to learn how to create interesting and engaging social media content, and to their digital mentors – how to successfully mentor elder adults in the social media navigation. In addition, a system of digital badges will assess and validate the gained knowledge and skills, thus increasing the visibility of learning.
The Social Media Content Creation Learning Programme will have the following 4 modules:
- Social media intro (What is social media? Why to use them? What are the dangers and what to look out for; Do’s and don’ts; The most common social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok).
- How to use online tools, like Canva, Clipchamp, PowerPoint, etc. to edit and animate pictures and to create content for social media, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, etc.
- How to edit and animate pictures and create videos directly in social media (for Reels, Stories, etc). Role of hashtags and tags.
- How to use AI for creating digital content.
The Mentorship Tutorials will cover various aspects of digital mentorship, from understanding the unique learning needs of seniors through to effective teaching strategies.
The Silver Surfer Digital Badges will contain Digital Storyteller Badge (for elder adult learners) and Digital Mentor Badge (for elder adult educators and other generations interested in becoming digital mentors of seniors). Both badges will be aligned with DigComp Framework.
II) We will organise a series of Seniorthons (hackathons for seniors) at local and international level. During the face-to-face and online events, we like to support intergenerational learning and to involve and encourage both seniors (as future digital gurus) and young people (as digital mentors) to mutually learn and work together for creation of engaging digital content for social media. As a result, we expect at least 7 ‘senior – younger digital mentor’ pairs per country to be empowered to share personal stories and to learn from each other, including via social media.
III) We will create Back to the Future Digital Portfolio, where digital stories from the Senoirthons are uploaded and available.
IV) We will organise local multiplier events in all partner countries to present the project results, outputs, outcomes and achievements. Through them, we like to encourage more seniors to improve their digital storytelling skills, to share their personal experiences via digital channels and to use social media in a meaningful and responsible way, as well as representatives of younger generations and elder adult educators to engage with mentoring seniors, thus supporting intergenerational learning and social inclusion of elders.
For more information, please check our Facebook profile and the project website at www.backtofuture.eu or its Facebook profile at Back to Future | Facebook.
The project “Back to the Future – Seniors acting as Digital Storyteller Gurus” (2024-1-LT01-KA220-ADU-000252189) is co-funded by the Erasmus + Programme of the EU, through the Lithuanian National Agency.
2024-1-LT01-KA220-ADU-000252189
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.