From the archiveSummit page, captured November 2010
Summit on the Future of Adult Education in the New Digital World
November 5-6, 2009 · The Literacy Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University · Richmond, Virginia
Keynote Speakers
- Dr. Stephen Reder, Professor of Applied Linguistics at Portland State University
- Marian Thacher, Director of the Outreach and Technical Assistance Network (OTAN), Sacramento, California
A supplemental census report (2005), Profiles of the Adult Education Target Population, states that, nationally, more than 40 million people over the age of 16 are in need of adult education services, while the American Community Survey (2007) shows that more than 18 million people over the age of 25 lack a high school credential. High school dropout rates and an increase in the nation’s foreign-born population continue to contribute to the number of adults who need literacy and education services. At the same time, the definition of literacy is changing as digital literacy skills are increasingly gaining in importance for employers. In the report Are They Really Ready to Work? (2006), more than 75 percent of survey respondents from a range of industries identified “information technology application” as one of the workplace-related skills they expected to increase in importance over the next five years.
At the Summit on the Future of Adult Education in the New Digital World, The Literacy Institute at VCU will bring together a select group of invited experts in the fields of education and technology from across the nation to focus on technology use in adult literacy education and the challenges and opportunities it presents. Participants will be asked to contribute position papers addressing one or more of the following questions:
- How might technological innovations change adult literacy education by the year 2020?
- What are the essential components of a research agenda to evaluate technology-supported learning in adult literacy education?
- How do practitioners identify and implement best practices that incorporate technological innovations in adult literacy education?
- What role should technological innovations in adult literacy education play in the global economy by the year 2020, and how can public policy support that role?
At the summit, attendees will participate in working groups to generate a research agenda, along with policy and practice recommendations, that will provide guidance for the integration of technology into the field of adult literacy education. The position papers and recommendations will be published and made widely available. In addition, Virginia will use these to inform its new adult education technology plan.
Since its establishment in 2003, The Literacy Institute at VCU has worked to raise awareness, conduct research, and develop innovative projects in literacy across the lifespan. This Summit on the Future of Adult Education in the New Digital World represents an opportunity to assemble and disseminate a diverse set of viewpoints on an issue that is of vital importance to our nation.
Added in 2026: the 2020 questions, answered by events
The summit asked what technology would do to adult literacy education by 2020. Some of it arrived on schedule. The GED moved to computer-only testing in January 2014, so learners who could not type or use a mouse had a new hurdle before they reached a single question (see The GED essay). Federal law caught up the same year: the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 made digital literacy part of what adult education programs are expected to teach, and wrote in the integrated education and training model that PlugGED In had tried in 2009. And in spring 2020 the pandemic pushed nearly every adult class online at once, which tested the summit’s third question, how teachers find and use good practice with technology, harder than any working group could have.
The Longitudinal Study of Adult Learning, which Stephen Reder led in Portland from the late 1990s, is still one of the best sources on how adults build literacy over years, often outside formal classes. The archive did not capture the published position papers, if they were posted on this site.
Questions readers ask
When and where was the summit held?
On 5–6 November 2009 at The Literacy Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.
Who gave the keynotes?
Dr. Stephen Reder, Professor of Applied Linguistics at Portland State University, and Marian Thacher, Director of the Outreach and Technical Assistance Network (OTAN) in Sacramento, California.
What was the summit supposed to produce?
Position papers from invited experts, a research agenda on technology-supported learning, and policy and practice recommendations. Virginia planned to use them for its new adult education technology plan.