because they offer short-term affordable programs, and some community colleges offer technical programs that lower skilled workers find appealing (Hickman & Olney, 2011). The authors recommend increased governmental support for community colleges (Hickman & Olney, 2011).
If the postmodern world is characterized by fragmentation and diversity, it is also defined by new alliances and interactions. Demographics, the global economy, and technology have come together in adult education in the blurring of the field's content and delivery mechanisms. For example, adult education has been variously divided into formal, nonformal, and informal learning activities (see Chapter 3). Formal learning takes place in educational institutions and often leads to degrees or some sort of credit. Nonformal learning refers to organized activities outside educational institutions, such as those found in community organizations, cultural institutions such as museums and libraries, and voluntary associations. Informal learning refers to the experiences of everyday living from which we learn something. Today, many formal providers offer learning experiences that are noncredit, leisure oriented, and short term. Similarly, nonformal learning and informal life experiences can be turned into formal, credit-earning activities.
Another blurring can be noted in higher education. Once composed of learners 18 to 22 years old, the student body has grayed along with the population. Roughly 38% of those enrolled in college are age 25 or older (National Center for Education Statistics, 2018). Similar subjects may be taught at the local community college for credit and at the public adult school for noncredit. The part-time adult student taking a course during the day at a college is an adult learner as much as the 16-year-old studying for a high school diploma in a local evening class. There is also a blurring between higher education and business and industry. Many postsecondary institutions have business institutes that provide training and development services to business. Conversely, a growing number of private companies, such as McDonald's Hamburger University (Tomar, 2019) and the Pardee RAND Graduate School, are offering accredited degrees (Pardee RAND Graduate School, 2018).
Finally, a blurring of content and delivery is found in such popular slogans as “workplace literacy,” “learning to learn,” “critical thinking,” and “media literacy.” Educators, employers, and society at large are focusing attention on developing the skills needed to be productive and informed members of a fast-changing and highly technical society. With the erosion of boundaries in the content and provision of adult learning, we may be witnessing the emergence of what has been called the learning society. Taking human beings rather than educational institutions as its beginning point, the learning society is a response to the social context.
Summary
Adult learning does not occur in a vacuum. What one needs or wants to learn, what opportunities are available, the way one learns—all are to a large extent determined by the society in which one lives. This chapter has discussed several characteristics of American society today that are shaping the nature of learning in adulthood.
Demographics, globalization, and technology are three forces affecting all of society's endeavors, including adult learning. Regarding the American population, adults outnumber youth, there are more older adults, adults are better educated compared to previous generations, and there is more cultural and ethnic diversity among the population than ever before.
Globalization is linking the world through economics, knowledge, information, culture, and services. Transnational companies benefit the most from globalization but at what expense to workers? As a result of globalization, critics note learning has become increasingly individualized with greater gaps between the rich and the poor (Walters, 2014), whereas others say that lower skilled U.S. workers are finding more opportunities for pursuing additional skills at community colleges as a result of globalization and immigration (Hickman & Olney, 2011).
Technology is integral to the global economy and has contributed to, if not caused, the shift to an information society, creating dramatic changes in the workforce. Although we have treated them separately, these three forces are interactive and firmly embedded in the American capitalist value system. Adult education both reflects and responds to the forces prevalent in the sociocultural context. Among the implications discussed in the chapter are the field's responsiveness to special groups of people, the economic productivity rationale behind much of adult education, the need for the development of critical thinking skills in order to assess the endless flow of information, and the need for educators, indeed, all adults, to constantly learn in a tech-driven society.
Chapter 2 Adult Learning and Technology
Technology is embedded in our lives. Some of us may no longer hail a taxi, but instead use an app on our phone to request a pickup from a shared ride service. We can use YouTube to learn how to knit, how to negotiate a salary, and how to fix a leaky bathroom faucet. We don't need a cashier to total up our grocery bill as stores have self-checkout machines. Drones help farmers check on crops and livestock and they help assess damage after a storm. Teaching technologies have also evolved. Students use clickers to respond to multiple-choice questions presented by the teacher instead of raising their hands. Material that used to be presented on the overhead projector is now shown via YouTube video, Prezi, Animoto, or PowerPoint. As we discuss later in the chapter, the way courses are delivered has been changed by technology. Companies such as the Khan Academy offer online courses to supplement K-12 curriculum as well as courses in college test preparation, personal finance, and entrepreneurship (Khan Academy, 2019). In addition, the “flipped classroom” utilizes blended instruction where some course content such as videos or a podcast are viewed or heard outside of class time and activity-based instruction such as solving math problems is accomplished in class (Moffett, 2015). King (2017) lists common uses of technology in Table 2.1.
Table 2.1 Common Uses of Technology
SOURCE: King, 2017, pp. 30–31.
| Reserving airline tickets, hotel rooms, car rentals, vacations, and so on | Maintaining a personal calendar |
| Accessing health-related information | Filing income tax |
| Reading books | Taking an online class |
| Online shopping | Learning how to do something new |
| Watching television and movies (live and on demand) | Tracking investments |
| Listening to music | Trading stocks |
| Checking the weather | Researching the next car |
| Hunting for an apartment or house | Finding a date or mate |
| Communicating with friends and family | Communicating work-related information |
| Sending pictures to friends and family | Sending birthday “cards” |
Technology has always changed people's lives. Gutenberg's printing press, for example, “expanded the number of words available… [which] increased the depth and breadth of communication” (Parker, 2014, p. 223). Multiple copies of materials could be delivered to learners, so the consistency of knowledge increased. Fast-forward to the early
