Adult Learning in the Digital Age

Description

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.

University of Cardiff, UK University of York, UK University of Oxford, UK

'This book will give readers much to think about in relation to the political agenda but it should also provide a rich grounding of fieldwork data from which to appreciate the present relationship between beyond-school learning and new technology... An excellent read: a stimulating interpretation of findings from a timely and elegant piece of research. I strongly recommend it.' - Journal of Adult and Continuing Education "It is a well-organized and well-written volume that should appeal to adult educators with an interest in technology-based learning." -- The Canadian Journal for The Study of Adult Education, November 2007.