DIGI CITIZEN

The Social Insurance Institution of Finland (KELA)

As a student about twenty-five years ago I got student financial aid. I was eligible to get study grant and study loan.

As a new mother I was allowed to have a maternity package. Maternity allowance was paid to me during my maternity leaves. The parental leave begins after the maternity leave. During my parental leaves I got parental allowance.

There are many ways of arranging day care for the child after the period of a parental allowance. My children were looked after at home until they were 2–3 years old. During that period KELA paid me child home care allowance.

KELA pays child benefit for each child who is permanently resident in Finland. I got that benefit for my four children. Nowadays only one of them is under 17 years, so a child benefit still continues for a couple of months.

Last year I was in a Covid-19 quarantine. During that period (14 days) KELA paid me an infectious disease allowance, because I didn’t get salary.

KELA pays also reimbursements for travel costs, medicine and medical expenses. The medical expenses are partly reimbursed when you visit a private healthcare provider. My family has been able to get these reimbursements many times.

My student daughters get study grant, study loan and general housing allowance.

In my family we all have European health care cards. Fortunately we haven´t had to use them.

In summary there are plenty of situations in life, when KELA provides allowances and reimbursements. In my opinion, social welfare in Finland is taken care properly.

Omakanta

Accessing Omakanta:

1. I have to log in to my Kanta pages by selecting a indentification method.
2. I have to identify myself to Suomi.fi -certificate. I have to authenticate myself by a mobile key or a key code list.
3.  I´m identifying myself to Personal Customer’s Kanta Services.

Keva

I logged in to Keva first time ever. It was interesting to check the amount of my pension in the age of 63 and 68.

Digital shops

I visit digital shops regurlarly. Especially my teenage and young adult daughters order their clothes and shoes mainly from digital shops. For example Zalando and ICIW are very popular among me and my daughters. The prices are combarable to local shops. Products are often cheaper in digital shops. The range of products is larger than in local shops.

I’ve visited Booking.com and Ebookers many times when I’ve planned to book a hotel room. It´s easy to compare the prices of different hotels.

 I listen to books via BookBeat. It’s so convenient to listen while for example driving a car, doing household chores, jogging or skiing. I’ve listened to numerous books during a year. I wouldn’t have time to read them while sitting on the couch.

Buying things from digital shops is quite reliable nowadays. The information to the consumer is adequate enough. Returning products is easy, although it needs some time and patience to pack products and take them to the post office. Sometimes it’s easier to buy especially clothes and shoes in local shops, however. In local shops you can try clothes and shoes on before buying. In digital shops there usually is a size chart, but it may not always be correct enough.

A digital service from my own field

I work as a class teacher in a primary school. Every day in I use Sanoma Pro platform in my work in Finnish, mathematics, science, religion and English lessons. In Sanoma Pro website you can find textbooks, exercise books, teacher’s guides, tips for evaluation and plenty of extra material like songs, plays and games. In my opinion Sanoma Pro platform is very versatile and inspirational for both pupils and teachers.

For pupils Sanoma Pro provides digital learning environment called Bingel. Pupils can exercise their skills in reading and writing Finnish and English, mathematics and science. Pupils can study at school or at home.

Every morning in my classroom I open my computer and my e-mail and websites Wilma and Sanoma Pro.

Digitalisation and digital gap

There are plenty of people in the world who cannot or don’t want to use digital services. However the world changes all the time. More and more people come online.

The use of digitalisation requires a will to learn. In spite of possibilities to learn and use digital services, there are many people who don’t want to learn to use internet. For example some elderly are unable to take advantage the same  digital services as the others. They have to pay more to get services in the traditional way, for example banking services.

The digitalisation of health care creates problems for those who cannot or do not know how to use digital services. You can’t use  the services of a net doctor or renew your prescription, if you don’t know how to use internet.

The blogs I commented:

https://blogi.savonia.fi/annivou/didi-citizen/

DIGI CITIZEN

DIGI CITIZEN

I couldn’t post to Amiinius’s and Heini’s site, so here are my comments to their posts:

To Heini I wrote:

Hi, Heini! Using subpages in this section Digi Citizen is clear and easy to read. You wrote about Ebay. I had forgotten how I once ordered a schoolbag for my daughter via Ebay. It was the first time ever I ordered something from foreign digital stores. I’m not sure if the seller was a company or a private person. In any case, the bag never arrived. As far as I can recollect, I payed it by PayPal. I never got my money back. Fortunately the bag wasn’t expensive. After that I’ve  shopped online several times successfully, but not once from Ebay anymore.

Welcome to visit my blog, too!

My comment to Amiinius’s post:

Hi! It was very interesting to read about the Secapp application. I’ve never heard about that before. It seems to be useful tool to get more nurses to the ward. It’s also good that a nurse can set the app offline, if she/he doesn’t want to get disturbed in her/his freetime.

You do important work. Take care!

My comment to Anni you can read from her site.

The Digital Competence Test

I’m in level 5 (advanced). According to digital-competence.eu -website ”users of level 5 are able to perform many different tasks and guide others in doing the same. They can also solve most problems on their own”.

The highest scores I got in these three competences: knowledge of current laws and licences for digital behavior, information and content, ability to monitor and protect the personal information online and understand the consequences of personal digital footprints, and ability and desire to seek out and benefit from self-service solutions online.

The lowest scores I got in ability to adjust applications and devices to their own personal preferences as well as to solve technical problems or tasks, in ability to create or modify digital solutions that can fully or partially automate or perform a task and in ability to create, assemble parts and modify content in different formats, like for example images, text, video and sound.

Self-reflection

KELA and Omakanta websites are very familiar to me. Especially during Covid-19 I have visited Omakanta several times to check the results of Covid-19 tests.  

It was interesting to visit English KELA website. I haven’t done that before. I learned many words in English of different kinds of allowances and reimbursements KELA is providing.

Visiting Keva website was interesting, too. I hadn’t done that before either. Now I know a little bit better, how much pension I will be paid in the future.

The most difficult part of this Digi Citizen section (as also in Digi Society section) was to comment others’ blogs. After writing a comment in an interesting blog, my comment suddenly disappeared somewhere to the bit space. It was a little bit frustrating. I’m not sure if I succeeded finally or not.

References:

www.kela.fi

www.omakanta.fi

www.keva.fi

https://digital-competence.eu/dc/

An orientation assignment will appear here soon.