KELA
My family gets child care allowance from Kela. Before we have also had housing allowance, student aid, parental leave allowance and maternity kit. I think it’s easy to handle things with Kela, you can do almost everything online and if you need extra help you can always call customer service. I have had the European health insurance card for a long time, I got my first one when they first came and I think it’s very handy that they always send you a new one when the old one expires.
OMAKANTA
I use Omakanta to renew prescriptions for myself and for my children. It is very easy to check if you need to renew a prescription or if there still is medicine left to pick up from the pharmacy. I use my online bank user identifier to log in, it’s easy and quick.
KEVA
Since I still have quite a lot of worklife left before retirement, the pension wasn’t that high yet. It was interesting to calculate different versions of my pension, I checked that if I get a better paying job after my studies, my pension would be quite a lot better. It was also interesting to see how much better pension is, if you work just a couple of years longer that your calculated retirement age.
DIGITAL SHOP
Many stores have their prices online so it is quite easy to compare prices. Especially if I’m bying something more expensive I always check different stores to see where I can find the product for the cheapest price. It’s good to remember that if you shop online, there can be extra charges and there can also be problems of getting the product, that you find about after the purchase. When I shop online I usually buy childrens clothes. There has been times that I feel I have been misled, the store shows online that they have products left, but when I look further it is not available on the size or colour I’m looking for. I prefer doing my shopping in real stores and not online, this way I get what I want and usually consider more about buying things.
I compared prices from Amazon and Prisma. The product i compared was a Lego Harry Potter set. The price on Amazon was 78,98 $ plus postage 21,73$, in euros that’s 93 €. The product was 76,90 at Prisma. So this time it was actually cheaper to buy the product from the store.
Amazon is a reliable digital shop, but there’s also quite a few of those that people really shouldn’t use. For example Shein is a super cheap fast fashion online store that produces very poor quality clothing for a very cheap price. Their workers are practically used as slaves, with very unhumane conditions at the factories and almost no time off. It is very easy to shop online, but you should really consider where you’re shopping. Shein is a good example of that, there are a lot of social media influencers who promote Shein, but if you start looking a bit more closely you can see that it is extremely unethical and as environmentally unfriendly as can be.
PRIME
Calender tool Prime is the most important program while working for the church. You can have all your own work in there and book people and spaces you need for your work. You can see who is working and book your colleagues for meetings and happenings. You can create different happenings with it and create links, so that people can sign up for those, this way you can get all the information you need without sending letters etc. Prime is also very useful for keeping statistics, so at the end of the calender year you can see how many people attendet in different groups and happenings. Prime is something people working at the church should use more actively, because the more information people put on Prime the more useful it is. You can use Prime from your smartphone, so it’s easy and efficient.
DIGITALIZATION
There can be many difficulties for people who don’t use virtual services. Almost everything is online nowadays and sometimes you also have to pay extra costs if you don’t use online services. One example is Kela applications, you have to apply for many things online. If you think about a smaller town with no social services office, it can be almost impossible to get help to apply for example income support. There can be a lot of people with mental health issues or elderly people who find it very difficult, if not impossible, to fill the applications online. If they can’t get any help or support, they maybe fall out of the grid and become excluded from the society.
DIGITAL COMPENTENCE TEST
SELF REFLECTION
KEVA was the only one I hadn’t used before, but now after I have checked it out I thought it was interesting to calculate different pensions.
Writing this assignment it became quite clear how many different applications and programs we have to/ get to use in our everyday lives. I haven’t even realised how many different ones I use in my life. You have an application for daycare, to book dentist appoitments, you can use Google to search for telefon numbers and all of this you can do with your phone, tablet or laptop. It’s easy and simple as long as everything is functioning. We Finns are privileged to be able to use so many different services and have so many different useful applications in our everyday use.
PLOG`S THAT I COMMENT
Laura´s blog didn´t have place to comment in Digi citizen, so I post my comment on the front page, hope that´s okei?