The future is digital but can digital tools fix all of adult learning’s problems? David Mallows shared his reflections.

We do so much online these days; we keep in touch with friends, shop, catch up on the news, watch TV, pay our taxes and water bills. We walk the street with our phones in our hands, anxious not to miss out on the latest message, update or notification. In short – we like our phones and our tablets and our newly found ‘umbilical cord’ to the online world of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We like this world of constant stimulation, unlimited possibilities, and we seem to accept the empty promises and illusions it offers. Yes, we do a lot online these days, but certainly not everything. We still engage with things and people and places offline. We live in the real world of physical things – we touch them, talk to them, and talk about them.

Potential and challenges

Of course, adult learning will be increasingly offered online. And that can be a good thing. Digitalisation offers flexibility, simpler access, a wealth of potential multimedia resources, and ways to motivate adults to engage in learning. However, the introduction of technologies in adult learning has been slow, and the evidence (as opposed to the trumpeting) of its effectiveness is limited. Evidence suggests that there are problems around staff development, cost (both of the tools themselves and the infrastructure needed to best look after them, as well as necessary staff training) and in some places, a lack of connectivity.

We are frequently told that technology has the potential to transform access to learning, overcoming geography, physical condition and finance and changing what, where, when and how we can all access learning. It could do, but will it? And if it does so, is it even that significant a change? Or is it just a change in the delivery mechanism, with no real impact on the learning we engage in? In the 1980s TV was the great transformational technology in education – by the time I started teaching in the 1990s, every classroom had a TV and a video recorder in the corner gathering dust. The TVs were soon replaced by overhead projectors connected to PCs, and these were replaced in turn by networked machines, and eventually cloud services and networked tablets (or something similar). In short, technology changes; those non-interactive whiteboards were once the hip new thing – banishing chalk dust from the classroom and teaching a whole generation of the difference between dry wipe and permanent markers (and the consequences of using the wrong one...).

Digital tools are not a goal but a means

We need to distinguish here between learning to use digital tools and learning though the use of digital tools. The former was a major driver behind increases in participation in adult learning in the last decade. However, in many societies, the ubiquity of digital tools has meant that learning to use them (digital competence), is a less pressing concern in many areas. While there are undoubtedly groups that are excluded from the digital revolution through their lack of ICT skills (and, possibly, lack of access to those tools and the broadband connections that bring them alive), for more and more people use of digital tools is an everyday practice. So the goal of adult educators should be to not just to encourage learning via digital means, but to ensure that the use of digital tools enhances learning – takes it to another level, rather than simply transferring a printed handout from paper to PowerPoint.

Digitalisation and inclusion

So, is digital learning just another technology? Does its introduction to the classroom (and its shaping of the ways in which adult learning can be delivered) represent a fundamental shift in adult learning? Does it require us to re-think the basis of our approach to adult learning? I'm not convinced. 

The expectations, motivations, lifestyles and experiences of young people (the future adult learners) are different from those in my generation (I’m in my 50s). This brings new challenges to education providers in delivering and assessing education. But, of course, it also offers great opportunities to innovate and reach out to a new generation of adults.

The use of technology in education presents barriers for certain groups of learners. Those currently most likely to be excluded from learning will almost certainly be further excluded if more of the adult learning offer goes online. As this happens, there is a danger that those who could benefit most from learning, will be left behind.

To sum up

Digital technology in adult education is here to stay (until it goes the way of the overhead projector of course), and it is right that we are dedicating time and effort to exploring the best ways to exploit in the service of adult education. However, let us not forget that adult education is mediated by personal relationships, and that the best adult educators are able to forge, and maintain these, and use them to support adults in learning.

Digital learning should enhance learning, not simply continue it via a digital means. We need to explore ways in which we can integrate technology to enable learners to actively engage with ideas and their peers, in order to enhance the learning experience, increase motivation, and provide a learning experience that approximates, or replicates, the ways in which adult access information and communicate with one another in the world outside the adult learning classroom.

David Mallows has 30 years of experience in adult education as a teacher, teacher trainer, manager and researcher. He was previously Director of Research at the National Research and Development Centre for adult literacy and numeracy (NRDC) at the UCL Institute of Education, London and currently represents the European Basic Skills Network in EPALE as thematic coordinator for Life Skills.