Adult Learning in the Digital Age: Information Technology and the Learning Society

Learning with technology is viewed globally as crucial to establishing a skilled workforce and empowering citizens by offering opportunities to those who would be otherwise excluded. Governments around the world have therefore set targets and developed policies to help all adults learn, work and live with the support of information and communications technologies (ICTs). This engaging book sheds light on the ways in which adults in the twenty-first century interact with ICTs in different learning environments. Based on one of the first large-scale academic research projects in this area, the authors present their well-received and rich findings to generate practical recommendations for the use of new technology in a learning society. They invite debate on: - why ICTs are believed to be capable of affecting positive change in adult learning - the drawbacks and limits of ICT in adult education - what makes a lifelong learner - the wider social, economic, cultural and political realities of the information age and the learning society.
Adult Learning addresses key questions and provides a sound empirical foundation to the existing debate, highlighting the messy realities of the learning society and e-learning rhetoric. It tells the story of those who are excluded from the learning society, and offers a set of powerful and stark recommendations for practitioners, policy-makers, and politicians, as well as researchers and students.