This article explores the efficacy of current education program approaches to prepare instructors to achieve critical thinking and active learning from their students by integrating ICTs with traditional adult education practices. An argument is put forward that the increasing presence and influence of ICTs in education necessitates a paradigmatic shift away from the prevailing conception of instructors as "users"; ICTs as "instruments"; and, pedagogies as "proprietary". Such a shift advocates critical paradigms that conceive of instructors, their students, as well as ICTs, more democratically and inclusively. Using the well-known expression "from sage on the stage to guide on the side" as a metaphorical framework to shape this argument, an alternate, more critical metaphor--"media mediators"--along with a brief "manifesto" of guiding principles, are also proposed. The hope of this article is to further explicate a much needed paradigmatic shift towards critical digital literacy for a future urgently in need of critical adult education ICT policy.