You are Never Alone

The Horizon Report 2008 edition, a collaboration between the New Media Consortium and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, describes six emerging technologies or practices that will likely enter mainstream use in learning-focused organizations within three adoption horizons over the next one to five years. Also highlighted are a set of challenges and trends that will influence our choices in the same time frames.

The report discusses the 6 trends according to a time-to-adoption prediction horizons.

• One Year or less: Grassroots video, and collaboration webs
• Two to Three Years: Moble Broadband, and Data Mashups
• Four to Five Years: Collective Intelligence, and Social Operating Systems

Each is discussed under the headings of Overview; Relevance for Teaching, Learning and Creative expression; Examples; and For Further Reading.

Essentially the adoption time frames relate to when we can expect to see these technologies used on tertiary campuses, rather than whether they are already available.
For example, both grassroots video and collaboration webs are already present in the online community. You only have to think of YouTube and TeacherTube, and then communities such as me.edu.au but also older longer standing examples such as Classroom 2.0 on Ning, or even FaceBook.

As we know there can be a considerable lag between a new technology emerging and its adoption in educational organisations and infrastructures. Part of this time lag must be attributed to the fact that educators not only need to understand how the technology works, they then need to consider how it might be useful in education. It does seem however that there is often, considering the rate that innovative technologies are emerging these days, a very long time between this assessment and utilisation phase, to structures being put in place so that educators can use a new technology in their daily contact with students.

The problem is that by the time “official” use is sanctioned, then the technology has moved on in the real world, and students are likely to see what is being offered as “old-fashioned”.

In addition to defining the emerging technologies, the Horizons Report defines and ranks some critical challenges facing learning organisations, particularly academic ones, over the next five years. It emphasises the importance of collaboration and interdisciplinary work; the need for educators to willingly and actively embrace the potential of the new technologies; and the need for institutions to provide formal instruction both for students and for educators in the use of the new technologies.

I can see that what this report has to say rings true in all education sectors in Australia, which makes the report worthwhile reading for all educators.

The report identifies 3 metatrends, based on patterns discerned in the last 5 years:

• collective sharing and generation of knowledge
• connecting people through networks
• virtual and augmented reality, using vector-based animation tools, and 3D outputs
• another four metatrends are defined at http://horizon.nmc.org/wiki/Metatrends