Organizations involved in adult education with 8 Member States of the European Union have set up a strategic partnership dedicated to the recommendations of the Europe 2020 strategy. It is estimated that up to 45% of adults in the European Union without a basic digital literacy is already excluded, discriminated against, or not adapted to the labor market. That is why the European Commission sees regards the development of digital literacy as playing the key role of in adult education. As a result of cooperation leading to the submission of the application educational project “Be smart – Strategic Partnership for Digitally Excluded” (SPADE) has been developed, whose ultimate goal is any kind of action that includes people at risk of exclusion, due to the advanced age and/or deficits in education. We are planning activities leading our students to overcome fundamental barriers to in the use of digital technologies, such as lack of motivation and lack of appropriate skills, offering our target groups the opportunity to gain the appropriate digital literacy at courses tailored to their psychophysical needs. Among the partners are Folk Universities from Germany and Austria and a SeniorNet School of Adult Education in Sweden – precursors of adult education and lifelong learning, and organizations from Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Portugal, which, despite lesser experience in the field of informal education, try to keep pace with more experienced partners. According to the indicators of DESI (The Digital Economy and Society Index), in the field of digitization Germany Austria, Sweden and Portugal are in the forefront of countries whose citizens take advantage of new technologies, and other partners: Czech Republic, Poland and Bulgaria are among the countries falling behind in this ranking. All organizations that make up our partnership, in accordance with the requirements of the present times, offer courses in ICT (information and communication technologies) for different audiences, among others older elderly and/or weakly poorly educated people. By developing the international cooperation, the educators who work working with the institutions and partner organizations will have a chance to exchange experiences in the area of organization of the courses and choice of their themes topics for the above groups; use the working methods proven by partners, like the potential of volunteering. This aim will be achieved by meetings and workshops and a summing-up conference. The exchange of experience in the field of digitization and presentation of good practices and implementation of e-learning platforms will primarily serve four-five trainings/workshops carried out in countries deemed to be leading. Acquired knowledge will be tested and implemented during local activities in all partner countries. Scheduled is also one training session in Gdansk, for three (2 Polish and 1 Czech) organizations. The goal will be class visits on at the courses carried out by MED-PRO, workshops on projects within the coalition of the Digital inclusion of Generation 50 + "M@turity on the Web". Project meetings will take place roughly every 4 months, to ensure constant contact between the partners, to guarantee the correct operation, and hence the success of the project. The participants will also have the opportunity to take part in the artistic events of the partner institutions. The international cooperation ensures high quality, versatility and adequate scope of the topics to the educational needs of the European societies concerning their social communication and information competences. The results of the current project and examples of ongoing projects, which in our assessment opinion are worth being multiplied, will be placed on the Moodle platform and on the platform of the European Commission EPALE. In this way, we would like to assure our design special European dimension of education in the field of open educational resources (OER). Course participants will be able to use also artistic offer of individual partner institutions. A durable permanent result of the project will also be a generally available project website, photos and descriptions on the websites of partner organizations and an e-brochure with a description of the methods and results of the project in English and in the other languages of the national partner organizations.
Summary Organizations involved in adult education with 8 Member States of the European Union have set up a strategic partnership dedicated to the recommendations of the Europe 2020 strategy. It is estimated that up to 45% of adults in the European Union who do not have basic digital competences are already excluded, discriminated against, or not adapted to the labour market. That is why the European Commission sees the key role of adult education in the development of digital competences. As a result of cooperation leading to the submission of the application educational project “Be smart – Strategic Partnership for Digitally Excluded” (SPADE) was developed, the main goal of which was all kinds of activities involving people at risk of exclusion, among others due to age and education deficits. The project carried out activities leading to overcoming the basic barriers to the use of digital technologies, such as the lack of motivation and the lack of appropriate skills, offering our target groups the opportunity to acquire appropriate digital competences on courses tailored to their psychophysical needs. Among the partners were Folk Universities from Germany and Austria and a SeniorNet School of Adult Education in Sweden – precursors of adult education and lifelong learning, and organizations from Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Portugal, which, despite lesser experience in the field of informal education, tried to keep pace with more experienced partners. According to the DESI (The Digital Economy and Society Index) indicators, in the field of digitization Germany, Austria, Sweden and Portugal are in the forefront of countries whose citizens take advantage of new technologies, and other partners: Czech Republic, Poland and Bulgaria are among the countries falling behind in this ranking. All organizations that make up our partnership, in accordance with the requirements of the present times, offer courses in ICT (information and communication technologies) for different audiences, including older people and people with a low level of education. By developing the international cooperation, the educators who were working with the institutions and partner organizations had a chance to exchange experiences in the area of organization of the courses and choice of their topics for the above groups and use the working methods proven by partners, like the potential of volunteering. This aim was achieved by meetings and workshops. The exchange of experiences in the field of digitization and presentation of good practices as well as the implementation of e-learning platforms was mainly facilitated by trainings/workshops carried out in countries deemed to be leading. The acquired knowledge was tested and implemented through local activities such as courses and computer consultations in all partner countries. The international cooperation of the partners involved ensured high quality, versatility and adequate scope of the topics to the educational needs of the European societies The results of the project, which in our opinion are worth being multiplied, were placed on the Moodle platform and on the platform of the European Commission EPALE. In this way, we give our project a special European educational dimension in the field of Open Educational Resources - OER. A lasting result of the project will be a generally available project website, photos and descriptions on the websites of partner organizations and an e-brochure with a description of the methods and results of the project in English and the national languages of the partner organizations.