Digital Literacy Training for Seniors

In May 2021, the Digital Literacy Programme for Seniors won the Education section of the IDC Smart City Asia Pacific Awards.

The programme started in 2020 and is funded for three years to provide digital literacy training for 4,700 older people.

Our Digital Literacy Programme for Seniors aims to:

– enable older people to keep up with technology as it changes

– increase older people’s the trust and confidence of carrying out online activities, including staying connected with their families and friends

– improve digital inclusion.

We led a procurement process and contracted two service providers; Digital Inclusion Alliance Aotearoa and 2020 Communications Trust to provide Essential Digital Skills and literacy training. Click here to find out more about the Digital Literacy Training for Seniors programmes.

Digital Inclusion Alliance Aotearoa uses its partner network, including libraries, and community organisations, to teach computer and internet skills. The 20/20 Trust works at the grassroots level to provide digital literacy training to the most vulnerable in the community. It is delivered at local churches and in the participants own languages. Together, the programmes are helping to support digital inclusion and accessibility for all.

The Essential Digital Skills/Literacy Evaluation Framework

The Essential Digital Skills/Literacy Evaluation Framework has been designed to help evaluate the effectiveness and quality of digital literacy training programmes for seniors.

The Office for Seniors developed the Essential Digital Skills/Literacy Evaluation Framework for anyone to use. We have shared the evaluation framework with a number of government agencies, businesses, and digital literacy training providers. Our two contracted providers have adopted the evaluation framework for their digital literacy training programmes.

We have also included a pre and post self-assessment resource to assist with evaluation.

Age friendly Aotearoa New Zealand 2020 essential-digital-skills-evaluation-framework-for-seniors

Age friendly Aotearoa New Zealand 2020 essential-digital-skills-pre-and-post-self-assessments (1)

The evaluation framework is based on the UK’s Essential Digital Skills Framework and the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs’ Digital Inclusion Blueprint Outcomes Framework. We modified it to what we think is important and relevant for older people. The self-assessment for before training is to identify the digital skills the participants want to learn and have, and a self-assessment for after training to see if they have learned and can use the skills after their training, as well as their experience about the training programmes and trainers/facilitators.