If we go back 15 years ago, only a limited amount of people had access to the Internet and in fact, it did not had the same utilities that it has nowadays. It was rather considered as a whim. The younger were the social group that used the Internet the most and they did it with the main purpose of playing to online videogames, chating with friends, watching videos or films, etc. Therefore, the use of this resource was merely for leisure.

 

However, nowadays the Internet has perpetrated on each issue of our lives, becoming particularly necessary in areas such as education and work. The vast amount of information that the Internet can offer us is necessary for most people to be able to perform their jobs, either they work from home or in the workplace, it is even particularly useful to complete tasks and projects. Thus, only few people still does not has access to the Internet.

 

As stated in the well-known Spanish newspaper “El País” and accordind to the European Digital Agenda, for 2020 all citizens should have access to the Internet with a minimum of 30 megabits per second (Mbps), in order to be able to achieve that, the European Union has allocated funds of up to 400 euros per user to cover up the Internet installation via satellite in Spain. In compliance with this data, the Internet it is not only considered a need but also a one of the new rights of the 21th century.

 

Despite the growing disponibility of the Internet, there is still a reduced group of people which are not aware of its importance or that unfortunately, they do not have the adequate tools and resources to get to know how to use it. In this sense, CIDET has been working to bring new technologies closer to seniors, promoting then the seniors’ social inclusion in the digital world, so they can not be left behind.

 

We have participated in multiple european programmes which have as a main objective the willigness to teach older people (and also those who are interested in this) how to make use of new technologies and the Internet. Following are some of the programmes CIDET has been involved in:

  • Ed-way, which attempts to train instructors and profesors which can teach seniors and unskilled people how to properly use the ICTs.
  • CSDW. Its main goal is to train istructors,  so they can teach seniors and unskilled people how to use tablets.
  • Walk and Talk which combines the adoption of new concepts via the use of the Internet while promoting exercicing among seniors.

The Internet is vital to develop our work but also it is one of the most used options to train people, nowadays. High schools, schools, univeristies, institutions and even enterprises rely on virtual platforms to teach their students and train their employees. And CIDET is aware of the increasing importance of the virtual education, so it is currently developing an e-learning platform called Edueca.

 

Edueca is an online learning platform where instructors, profesors and learning centres can offer their courses. It is simple and easy to use due to the fact that it has been thought to be used by unexperienced people in the world of new technologies. Furthermore, it offers a range of possibilities such as:  webinars, cuestionaries, upload media content, tutorising system, etc.

As stated before, Internet has become a right in the recent years, so CIDET will continue working to protect this right and get the new technologies and our knowledge closer to that people who does not has the necessary resources to use it. In our case, education is the most poweful tool.