IT and Computer Technologies for Education of Senior Citizens and Improving the Quality of Their Life

Abstract

At present, IT have become an indispensable condition for the quality of education, but they are rarely applied in education of senior citizens and their range is quite narrow. An exception is the methods of teaching computer literacy to older adults, which is much narrower than IT in education. Meanwhile, they are no less essential both for adaptation of the elderly to the contemporary conditions of life and for the young generations. The authors prove that application of these technologies can change the quality of life for older adults and enables them to extend their professional activity, to broaden their scope of communication, and to raise their level of social adaptation to the environment and daily life. It has been found during the research conducted that the use of IT in education of senior citizens has some essential features and requires special conditions of application. In the research, questionnaire survey and testing, in-depth interview, expert survey, and participant observation methods were used that allowed studying the senior citizens’ demands for educational services, computer literacy improvement, as well as barriers and risks in their getting the education, conditions for enhancing its efficiency. During the research, disadvantages in development of IT and software products targeted for education of the aged have been found. The results obtained allow contributing to the development of concepts of thriving old age, active longevity, and higher social and professional engagement of older adults. They are of great importance both for the very senior citizens and for education providers, as well as for developers of educational software products needed by older adults and their teachers.