InfoBiTS: A Mobile Application to Foster Digital Competencies of Senior Citizens

Abstract

Nowadays, digitalization is increasingly finding its way into all areas of daily life. This poses new challenges for people who have little experience in dealing with digital devices, particularly senior citizens. In this paper, we introduce InfoBiTS, a native Android application that provides computer science related content for seniors and aims to foster digital competencies of seniors. In addition to basics in the use of mobile devices, the app contains four modules, whose content was selected from school curricula for computer science, topics of current relevance, interests of seniors as well as contents relevant to seniors’ day-to-day activities. The target groups’ interests and everyday life relevance are particularly important, since research in geragogics shows that they are important aspects for learning in old age. Each of the four modules combines learning content with hands-on exercises. For research purposes, different questionnaires are integrated in the application and activity data is logged and stored as xAPI statements in a Learning Analytics component. A first pilot study showed a good usability and indicated the importance of relevance to the everyday life of the target group. Furthermore, participants preferred a mixture of text and video elements as opposed to pure text modules.