While it is becoming increasingly difficult to go about daily life without digital literacy, it is becoming impossible to get an education without it. Ten years ago, the U.S. Department of Labor defined digital literacy as a funded goal for workforce readiness programs through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014. But adult education programs don’t always help adults who aren’t comfortable with technology.
A recently published qualitative study of adult education programs by researchers at Texas A&M University found that some adult education programs rely on a single person for all of their IT needs, regardless of that person’s formal occupation. Some programs lack reliable internet access or modern, secure equipment. With or without equipment, teachers themselves may not have adequate digital literacy skills, making it difficult for them to teach those skills to others, the researchers found.
Glenda Rose, who has worked in the Texas education system for 25 years, led a study called Program Directors’ Perspectives on Technology Integration in Adult Education and Literacy Classrooms while working at the Texas Center for Advancing Literacy and Learning (TCALL) at Texas A&M University. Six years ago, Rose and a team of students and staff realized that technology integration in adult education and literacy programs was understudied. To learn more, they began surveying adult education teachers by asking basic questions like, “What technology do you have available to you?” and “What do you use in your classroom?”
The range of responses led the team to conduct more in-depth interviews with program directors. While technology deserts impact all levels of education, the team found that the structure of adult education poses unique challenges.
At a very basic level, programs struggle with access to technology. As one interviewee put it, “Our challenge is funding…we don’t have enough computers for all students, and we don’t have internet access in all places.” None of the program directors interviewed for the study would give their names.
The researchers conducted their interviews before the COVID-19 pandemic increased the need for digital literacy. Since then, technology has become a higher priority at the state level, Rose said, citing increased funding for affordable connectivity programs and things like laptops and smartboards in classrooms. But Amanda Higgins, a graduate student who worked on the study, said incorporating technology into adult education isn’t as simple as buying new equipment.
Unlike primary and secondary schools and traditional higher education institutions, adult education does not take place in schools but often takes place in locations that can minimize travel time and costs, she said.
“Maybe we’ll have one classroom in an apartment building, one in a church and one at a community college,” she said. “Obviously the community college has more resources. They have computers. They have the internet. The church might not have Wi-Fi or a smart board. They might just have paper and markers.”
Additionally, instructors working in rented spaces, like churches, may not have permission to use their hosts’ technology or store their own, and Rose said some programs struggle to maintain equipment after they acquire it.
“Our programs, mostly in rural areas, have 10-year-old computers and we don’t have the funding to replace them,” one program director said.
Surveys have shown that 90 percent of adult education teachers in Texas work part-time, up to 19 hours a week, with or without equipment. Teachers may need to dedicate some of that class time during the week to professional development in order to learn how to incorporate technology into their classrooms and instruction.
Most adult education teachers in Texas are current or retired K-12 teachers, but some have chosen to retire because they found the new technology too challenging, Rose said.
Outside of formal professional development, some program directors noted that IT staff could help train other staff, although smaller adult education programs relied on their own instructors and staff rather than IT professionals for technical assistance.
“There are only seven teachers. They just yell at me and ask, ‘How do you do this?’ and I just tell them how to do it,” one interviewed said.
Higgins said it can also be difficult to successfully integrate digital literacy into existing courses: Some programs teach classes on specific technology skills, such as Microsoft Office or typing skills, while others weave such topics into existing courses, such as creating graphs in Excel in a math course.
Either way, teaching digital skills to classes with vastly different backgrounds and standards can be challenging. Unlike traditional education, where students are grouped by age and developmental stage, adult learners vary widely in age and prior educational experience.
For example, grouping people by grade level in the K-12 education system “simplifies the curriculum because you can design it for that age and stage,” Higgins says. “But with adult education, you’re bringing in people from all walks of life, all different levels of education. You’re bringing in people who haven’t been to school since fourth or fifth grade, eighth or ninth grade. You’re bringing in people with different English proficiency levels, which can be another curveball for educators.”
Both Higgins and Rose said adult education is not always held to the same weight or importance as traditional education courses, but they stressed that teaching digital literacy in such programs is essential.
“We’re not just teaching digital literacy for digital literacy’s sake,” Rose said, “because digital literacy is tied to the ability to participate in society and contribute to economic stability.”
