Social Workers’ Digital Competencies as a Prerequisite of their Readyness for Education of Elderly People

The digital literacy analysis of social workers providing geronto-education services was conducted according to five main parameters: information literacy, computer literacy, communication and media literacy, and technology literacy.

The results of the digital literacy assessment show that two-thirds of social worker-teachers have enough knowledge, skills and follow the right attitudes. At the same time, digital skills received an average of 3.2 points (3.4 urban and 3.0 rural) out of 5 possible. The majority of social workers (66 people, 90%) have been actively using digital technologies in the geronto-educational process of the Third Age University for less than ten years.

The study found out that 96% of social workers-gerorogists desire to move to online learning in the current situation, of which 78% expressed a desire to undergo professional retraining in online learning.

As the main obstacles to mastering and developing gerorogical technologies-innovations, social workers named: insufficient awareness of digital innovations, lack of scientific and methodological literature on social technologies for teaching elderly people; lack of logistics for the application of gerorogical digital innovations; lack of material incentives.

The results of the study indicate the need to develop social workers-gerorogists: knowledge in the field of modern computer technology and software, as well as the principles of their work; skills of using modern technologies (gadgets and applications); installations in the field of verification of information from the Internet and mass media; attitudes about the benefits of modern gadgets for the daily life of a professional.