People usually start to retire at age of 65 in Europe, which gives many of them 15-20 years of life out of work in quite good health. Older people have a huge experience in life and knowledge and are often willing to share, participate, and learn. They want to do something useful in this long phase of life and are looking for further education or a way they can still stay connected to their old field of occupation and give other people advice and help. Younger generations can also benefit from their experience. This trend is evident in the increasing number of older adults attending university courses and/or various courses at adult education centres. Modern society’s question about older age and learning is no longer “Are older adults capable of learning something new?”, but “Under which circumstances are older adults capable of learning new things?”

As older people have specific requirements, it is necessary to adapt trainings and educational activities. Programs focused on new technologies are particularly important in this context as they respond more relevant to the individual needs of older learners. The partners in this project believe that online courses and e-learning platforms might be a solution to create a way to share and open further education to older people. In fact, e-learning offers several advantages, inter alia learning in own space, learning from home, learning without performance pressure. SenGuide project contributes to social inclusion as seniors are given the chance to access and engage in learning activities. While face-to-face offers are mainly limited to active, mobile and urban seniors, in this project all interested older adults are able to participate including people with reduced mobility, limited time (caused e.g. by care for relatives), or local constraints (e.g. living in a rural area).

Within the SenGuide project, older adults above the age of 55 years will be trained to develop interactive ICT based content that will be shared with other seniors. The project will empower then to become authors in their field of expertise using new technologies and gaining knowledge on the use of e-learning platforms. Thus, the created online modules will be developed not by multimedia trainers or practitioners in adult education but the seniors themselves. That will guarantee that the topic and way of presentation meets best the interests of other older people. The approach applied is open and based on innovative pedagogics and practices. It includes a well-balanced combination of knowledge transfer, learning from experience, research and development.

Project results include development of new and innovative curricula, open educational resources in the form of online material created by seniors on topics that affect older adults in their daily life, innovative educational methods and training courses for seniors, and findings on the use of learning management systems by older adults. In order to enable other players in adult education to benefit from these results, the implementation of the online training in a learning management system will be examined through a survey study in more detail, framework and success criteria identified, and published in a guide for practitioners and multipliers.

The project partners are ILI at Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft der Senioren-Organisationen e.V. (BAGSO) from Germany, Jaume I University from Spain, Silver Thread from Ireland and Tulip Foundation from Bulgaria. The project is financed under Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission. The activities will be realised in close cooperation from 2020 until 2023.