terms as the “Digitally Ready.” They came from higher income households and typically had some college experience and were in their 30s and 40s. The “Digitally Ready,” 17%, loved to learn for personal enrichment and were very confident about their online skills and knew the most about online learning resources (Horrigan, 2016).
Part of becoming “Digitally Ready” is the ability to evaluate information online, and critical thinking skills are necessary. Critical thinking “involves people using a systematic approach to evaluate information, develop viable solutions, and test them as they seek to solve many different types of structured and ill-structured problems” (King, 2017, p. 115). The elements of critical thinking include “generating purposes, raising questions, using information, using concepts, making inferences, making assumptions, generating implications and embodying a point of view” (King, 2017, p. 115). To evaluate information, we need to examine its “clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, and fairness” (Elder & Paul, 2010, as cited in King, 2017, p. 115).
Technology is here to stay and teachers may need to learn new ways of interacting with students in an online or hybrid learning environment. Consulting with an instructional design specialist or attending professional development workshops on effectively integrating distance learning tools may be necessary for some instructors while others may pick these skills up on their own. Some higher education institutions offer distance education certificates for faculty. Course topics may include how to design an online course, best practices in facilitating an online course, exploring online learning communities, learning assessment tools, and copyright issues (Online Learning Consortium, 2018).
In other areas, such as adult basic skills education, ABE educators face challenges in using technology. These challenges are more evident in ABE than other areas of education due to persistent underfunding (Rosen & Vanek, 2017). Educators need “professional development, coaching, and technical assistance” to integrate technology into their classrooms and they need to know how to “evaluate hardware and software” that can be used in the classroom (p. 56). Although both the Arizona Department of Education's Adult Education Services and the Adult Education and Literacy Department of the Texas Workforce Commission provide a wide range of professional development programs, including webinars and self-paced learning for ABE instructors, these types of opportunities are needed nationwide (Rosen & Vanek, 2017). Unfortunately, federal funding has not increased for ABE, and most state funding has not increased either, so the integration of technology into ABE is a challenge (Rosen & Vanek, 2017).
In summary, technology has its benefits and drawbacks. Learners can access information easily and informal learning can occur via web searches, webinars, and YouTube tutorials. Individuals' digital readiness affects how individuals can access and use the plethora of available information. Digital literacy includes learning critical thinking skills. In addition, educators must have appropriate professional development opportunities to understand how to evaluate hardware and software and integrate it into their teaching. Although training is available for some, other areas of adult education, such as ABE, may struggle due to funding shortages.
The Convergence of Demographics, Globalization, and Technology
Demographics, globalization, and technology are closely intertwined. Advances in technology, for example, are interrelated with changes in the economic sector. Automation and robotics displace production workers but create other jobs. Technology creates an alternative work sector. The need to be competitive in the world market leads to further technological sophistication. Demographics and economics are related. Economic growth is tied to productivity and the number of individuals in the workforce. The Baby Boom generation is beginning to retire and globally there are fewer working-age individuals and more retirees. This decrease in labor force participation has been offset somewhat with advances in technology (Hayes, 2018). We can now complete our taxes with software, we obtain money from ATMs instead of bank tellers, and in the future perhaps driverless cars will eliminate the need for chauffeurs (Hayes, 2018).
Embedded in this convergence of demographics, economics, and technology is a value system based on the political and economic structure of capitalism. More than three decades ago, Beder (1987, p. 107) explained how these three forces are linked in the value system:
The beliefs undergirding the capitalist system emphasize material values. The health of the system is gauged in terms of national wealth as embodied in the gross national product, and social equality is assessed in terms of economic opportunity—the potential of members of the underclasses to amass more income. Hence, the political and social systems become directed toward … economic productivity, and economic productivity under the rationale of human capital theory becomes the predominant rationale for all publicly funded social interventions including adult education.
This value system directly shapes adult education in the United States in several ways. First, economic productivity becomes “the dominant rationale for all public subsidy of adult education” (p. 109). Second, social justice becomes equated with economic opportunity in that “the just society is a society that provides opportunity for members of the underclasses to amass more income and material goods” and adult education “helps learners acquire the skills and knowledge” to do so (p. 109). The emphasis is on productivity and efficiency, both of which benefit from advances in technology. Thus technology, in the service of economic productivity, converges with changing demographics in shaping the adult learning enterprise.
Nowhere is this more visible than in higher education. Before globalization and the market economy, higher education was a local enterprise serving a predominantly local or national constituency. Academic foci shaped the nature of the student body and concerns of the institution. With the shift to a consumer approach to higher education, the institution worries about its “brand” appeal, its profitability, its “share” of the market. Globalization is reshaping higher education in several ways. Students are studying abroad with more coming to the United States and Europe than in previous generations (Stromquist & Monkman, 2014). Technology has helped people communicate across the world using multiple media (Stromquist & Monkman, 2014). This has also meant that the Western values have circulated to other countries (Mason, 2003).
As already pointed out, some writers would like to see the values and purposes of adult education reexamined in the wake of the wide-scale social and economic changes taking place. In a postmodern world characterized by large-scale changes in global activity resulting in economic, social, and political uncertainty, adult education tends to be an entrepreneurial instrument of the so-called new world order. Adult education is particularly sensitive to a restructured workplace, reliance on technology to produce knowledge, and a market demand for multiskilled workers. Humans are resources for the winners of globalization—transnational corporations (Stromquist & Monkman, 2014). As well, knowledge has become an important business commodity that is readily marketed, due, in part, to the explosion of the Internet and other information technologies. Although knowledge and learning serve the needs of transnational corporations, there is also evidence that technology and globalization have made women's struggles across the globe more evident and technology has helped movements like Occupy Wall Street come to fruition (Stromquist & Monkman, 2014). Others note the impact of neoliberalism on adult education as educators help individuals cope with the overwhelming economic and other challenges that threaten their identities and survival (Bowl, 2017).
Globalization has affected the supply of low-skilled workers globally and in the United States (Hickman & Olney, 2011). Although scholars worry that low-level workers are being left behind in this global economy (Schied, Mulenga, & Baptiste, 2005), there is some evidence that U.S. workers are trying to obtain the skills needed for continued employment (Hickman & Olney, 2011). The researchers examined how immigration and offshoring levels affect enrollment in post-high school education (Hickman & Olney, 2011). Results showed that “offshoring and immigration increase enrollment at community colleges but not other types of institutions, particularly among older, non-traditional age students” (p. 654). Community colleges
