Professor Stephen McNair has spent half a lifetime's research proving it's better to be happy than rich – a state some say is best achieved through lifelong learning. Now, at last, the government has latched on to the idea and David Cameron is planning a happiness index as a measure of success.

McNair, a semi-retired National Institute of Adult Continuing Education research fellow, says that in all the guidance about wellbeing, education is central. "[It is] particularly important for those in the latter stages of life when one is less mobile and having to cope with the death of partners and friends: getting out of bed and feeling one has a purpose can be particularly challenging."

This is clearly not an issue for 84-year-old Jim Kelly, winner of an Adult Learners' Week award in 2010, who has in recent years dedicated himself to a wide range of study – everything from gardening to the 1688 "glorious revolution". After school days blighted by poverty and bullying teachers, the impetus to study came from his granddaughter Becky who, as a two-year-old, grew frustrated with his inability to answer her questions. "Don't you know anything grandad?" she would ask. Now, 14 years later, he tells the teenager he's pleased she asked that question.

Evidence of the benefits of learning during the latter stages of life is overwhelming, from research by the Alzheimer's Society showing delayed onset of the disease, to reduced dependency on welfare support.

Melissa March is executive director of Learning for the Fourth Age, a charity dedicated to bringing trained volunteers into care settings where they work with residents. "Our volunteers help people with everything from recovering piano-playing after strokes to wanting to tackle Welsh for the first time," she explains. "There is lots of interest too in IT and the connections that email can bring. Our work helps break down older people's fears about young people and opens our volunteers' eyes to the lives of older people with very different experiences from their own."

Such improvements bring genuine happiness, as 78-year-old Londoner Maria Tolly found. In 1989, health problems spelled an end to her career as a professional guitarist, until specialist music technology courses at Morley College and the City Lit restored her commitment to making music. "I was concerned that I might be sidelined," she recalls, "but actually studying at both institutions has proved that age is immaterial – I feel so connected to life thanks to a combination of forgetting myself and realising how much I still have to learn." Soon she had music commissions ranging from after-school dance groups to composing a song for the 100th anniversary of her local park. "I am now becoming interested in music videos and I am looking for collaborators."

John Salinas, at 91, is also embracing IT. Each week he drives to his computing class and has progressed rapidly from not even knowing how to plug in his laptop, to using digital photography.

Read the full article here from guardian.co.uk

A friend recently went to a business meeting. He prepared by pulling his laptop out of his bag. All of the clients responded by taking their iPads out of their briefcases.

These were not gadget freaks or latte-quaffing Hoxton-based web designers, as some imagine iPad users to be. They were a large group of senior civil servants and bankers, in a country well beyond Europe and the US. To them, the iPad wasn't a status symbol; it was a device they had chosen to use because it enhanced their ability to do their job.

A year on from its arrival, Apple's iPad tablet computer still divides opinion. A large group of people insist it is an "overpriced toy" with limited functionality -- no keyboard, doesn't run Microsoft Office, can't play Flash video, can't expand its storage. But a growing number believe that, on the contrary, the iPad represents a new frontier in computing. And they simply don't care what the first group thinks. They're getting on with using their machines.

We have lived with the PC paradigm for around 30 years now, since IBM introduced its first personal computers and pushed them into businesses in the early 80s. Until the launch of the iPad last year the only comparable change in the market had been the laptop, which led to the emergence of an army of travelling salespeople whose most urgent need was always to find a power point where they could charge their machine's fading battery.

The iPad seems to be different -- a third stage of computing. Horace Dediu, a former analyst with the mobile phone company Nokia who now runs his own consultancy, Asymco, argues that "the definition of a new generation of computing is that the new products rely on new input and output methods, and allow a new population of non-expert users to use the product more cheaply and simply".

That certainly sounds like the iPad. It shows that it is possible to have something that does all the computing functions you want with a big screen that also has long battery life and weighs almost nothing, certainly compared to a laptop. It is portable and durable, and the touch screen adds another dimension.

Though it has the most prominent tablet in the market, Apple isn't the only player. Dozens of companies are using Google's free Android software to power tablets, and Google is helping them along with a custom version called "Honeycomb", designed for iPad-sized Android tablets. An estimated 17 million tablets -- from Apple and others -- were sold in 2010, and that number is likely to keep growing.

But is it really changing the way we work? We interviewed a range of people in different professions to see whether the iPad is all hype -- or whether in future we will all keep taking the tablets.

Read what these various professionals have to say here 

Twitter, Facebook drawing more senior citizens to go online

Boulder senior service programs and retirement homes offering social networking classes

Sam Sirkin's grandson has been nudging him to set up a Facebook profile.

On Facebook, his 15-year-old grandson from New Jersey could share photos and videos from his swim meets, perhaps. He could chat online with his grandpa in Boulder. And, the two could keep each other updated on their "statuses."

Sirkin, a 74-year-old retired real estate broker, will soon make his grand, grandfatherly entrance into the social-networking world. But he needs some tutoring first, and will take a class next month through Boulder's senior center.

"I'm a senior who keeps getting left in the dust with Twitter and Facebook," he said. "I don't have a clue what Twitter is about."

Read more: Twitter, Facebook drawing more senior citizens to go online - Boulder Daily Camera

South Africa strike sends students beyond the classroom to learn

South Africa's strike by teachers has prompted students to fall behind in preparations for exams. They're turning to mobile phone programs to catch up.

Turn on your cellphone and the lesson will begin.

That's the unusual instruction given to thousands of school children in South Africa who have turned to mobile handsets to plug gaps in their math curriculum after a nationwide strike by teachers.

The bitter three-week strike by teachers and other civil servants over pay ended three weeks ago. However, students have protested across the country, complaining they did not have enough time to prepare for exams.

An estimated 12,000 students are downloading study materials from the popular mobile phone platform and messaging service MXit to bolster their chances of graduating in a month's time.

Read the full story HERE

The School of Hard Drives

Joshua Roberts for The New York Times

Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON

This interview is for a special issue on education and technology, so let me start by asking you about computers in classrooms. As the secretary of education, do you think every kid in America needs a computer? 
I think every student needs access to technology, and I think technology can be a hugely important vehicle to help level the playing field. Whether it’s in an inner-city school or a rural community, I want those students to have a chance to take A.P. biology and A.P. physics and marine biology.

What does that have to do with having a computer? 
We have thousands of students today taking online classes. We actually have virtual schools today.

Read the full interview HERE