Evolving Adult Literacies: Preparing Learners for the Future

In this episode of Voices Shaping the Future of Adult Literacy, we look back and move forward. Join us as we revisit highlights and key conversations from our first two seasons, reflect on what we’ve learned, and offer a glimpse of what’s coming in the next season.

In today’s episode, we’re exploring ethics as a form of literacy in the age of artificial intelligence. As AI tools show up in classrooms, workplaces, and everyday life, questions about bias, privacy, transparency, and accountability are no longer abstract, they shape who gets opportunities, who is left out, and how decisions are made about our lives.

Together, we’ll look at how AI can reproduce historical inequities, why it matters to understand what happens to our data, and how ethical awareness can become a core part of digital and AI literacy for learners of all ages.

Understanding AI isn't just about technology. It's about protecting our ability to think, learn, communicate, and build relationships while using AI as a helpful tool. In today's episode we're going to take a closer look at what they are, how they work, and how they've changed with the introduction of AI. Algorithms are working behind the scenes every time we use our phones, browse the internet, shop online, or scroll through social media.

In this episode, we explore why play, experimentation, and “hard fun” are powerful ways to learn with AI, not just about it. Episode 2, Play, Curiosity, and Human Strengths in AI Learning, looks at curiosity as a core human strength that drives discovery, innovation, and lifelong learning, and connects it to playful, hands-on approaches inspired by Seymour Papert’s ideas of learning through “hard fun.”

 In this conversation, we explore what it really means to turn data into information, and information into knowledge in practical, human terms. Kate helps us unpack ideas like computational thinking and coding in simple ways, showing how they’re not just technical skills, but natural extensions of literacy, and learning to communicate and connect with machines. We also dig into what humans bring to learning that machines can’t—and why building AI literacy is becoming essential for adults who want to feel more confident, critical, and in control in a rapidly changing digital world.