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Third-Age Learning
Enabling older adults to continue learning, connecting, and participating fully through thoughtfully designed technology-supported experiences.
As populations age and digital technologies become central to daily life, older adults face both new opportunities and barriers to continued learning. Families, community organisations, and older learners themselves need guidance on what is worth learning in later life, how learning should be supported, how older adults learn most effectively, and how progress and benefit should be understood.
CETLS designs and studies technology-enabled interventions that address these questions with rigor and respect. Our work is rooted in Indian and Global South realities — demographic ageing, intergenerational families, uneven digital access, and the need for culturally resonant, low-barrier solutions — while contributing to the global knowledge base on lifelong learning and active ageing.
What is worth learning
Opportunities that matter in later life: digital and AI literacy for everyday participation, cognitive engagement, health and financial literacy, creative expression, intergenerational knowledge sharing, and personal growth — designed for meaning and dignity.
How learning is supported
Age-friendly architectures: accessible platforms, community-based and intergenerational models, facilitated group learning, and gentle AI support that prioritise clarity, social presence, and respect for life experience.
How older adults learn
Motivation and meaning-making, social learning, adaptation to technology, and strategies that accommodate possible changes in cognition or digital familiarity, studied in real community and family settings.
How progress and benefit are understood
Evaluation focused on sustained engagement, sense of competence and connection, cognitive and social benefits, digital confidence, and contribution to well-being — rather than traditional high-stakes assessment.
Supported by
Learning Middleware →