ZAWiW - in brief...

The Centre for General Scientific Continuing Education (Zentrum für Allgemeine Wissenschaftliche Weiterbildung - ZAWiW), which was founded in 1994, is an institute of the University of Ulm, Germany www.zawiw.de

ZAWiW´s main tasks lie in the design and organisation of innovative educational offers for older people such as the "Seasons´ Academies" (https://www.uni-ulm.de/uni/fak/zawiw/jahreszeitenakademien.html) These are intensive weeks of continuing education for people in the third age - and younger! who are interested in central social issues and who wish to follow the latest scientific debates from various research perspectives. Approximately 800 seniors participate in each of the academy weeks.

In the period between the Academies, interested seniors can participate through "Learning through Research". The project groups´ results can contribute to bringing relevant social issues or not yet researched facts to the attention of the public (not only seniors) and especially in the case of research issues which are directly related to the life-style of older people (as in the subject "Older People and New Information Technologies") can make a special contribution to scientific and public debates. There are currently 18 work and project groups in various areas (natural sciences/ecology, environment, medicine, humanities and social sciences, European issues and new communication technologies), please see under "Projects": www.uni-ulm.de/LiLL/menus/E/projekte.html


On the regional level, under the motto Old and Young together, ZAWiW co-ordinates several intergenerative projects, https://www.uni-ulm.de/uni/fak/zawiw/jungalt/index.htm, some of these in Böfingen, a problem town quarter in Ulm. These projects should promote a dialogue between the generations, for example: "the Internet meeting place for young and old" or a model project "old help young during the transition from school to professional life".

On the national level ZAWiW participated in a major Internet information campaign, "Senior-Info-Mobil" www.uni-ulm.de/LiLL/senior-info-mobil, initiated by the association "Seniorinnen und Senioren in der Wissensgesellschaft e.V." (VSiW), ("Seniors in the Knowledge Society e.V.") in which a custom-built double-decker bus equipped with computers and the Internet and a tent with high-tech home equipment was stationed in various locations in Germany where training in the use of these technologies took place. The training modules as well as a user handbook were prepared and written by seniors for seniors within the framework of ZAWiW´s projects.

For its action scheme "Seniors on the Web", ZAWiW has been awarded with the BMBF (Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie - The Federal Ministry for Education., Science, Research and Technology) German Seniors´ Multimedia Prize 1997. On this basis, ZAWiW published in 2000 the CD-ROM "Internet - sinnvoll nutzen" ("Using Internet in a practical way") which was awarded a multimedia prize in January 2001.

ZAWiW's European projects and activities include co-ordination of the European Network "Learning in Later Life" ("LiLL" - www.lill-online.net) - an amalgamation of university-level institutions of continuing education for people in the third age and other institutions from 18 European countries, the 2 year virtual "learning-in-research" project SoLiLL (www.solill.net) and the Grundtvig 2 project EuCoNet (http://www.gemeinsamlernen.de/euconet).
Furthermore, ZAWiW participated in projects such as
Salomon (https://www.uni-ulm.de/LiLL/menus/D/report.htm),
Way to united Europe (https://www.uni-ulm.de/uni/fak/zawiw/way_europe/kurzbesch_way.html),
GERON (https://www.uni-ulm.de/uni/fak/zawiw/GERON2002/) and currently
Town Stories (http://www.gemeinsamlernen.de/townstories).

Since 2000 ZAWiW has been working on creating two major learning platforms for older adults in the Internet: www.lerncafe.de, a German online journal, and www.gemeinsamlernen.de, a platform for virtual learning in the Internet.

Most of ZAWiW´s educational programmes and projects are accompanied by research and its results are published. For a list of ZAWiW´s publications, please see
www.uni-ulm.de/uni/fak/zawiw/Publikationen.html