The New Media Consortium has published its 2008 Horizon Report, describing “emerging technologies likely to have considerable impact on teaching, learning, and creative expression within higher education.” Its some thirty pages, available as a download from the site, and well worth reading. I won’t summarize the report here — you can read it on your own — but here are some highlights that struck me, organized around the 6 emerging technologies they identified:
- Grassroots Video — time frame 1yr: A history faculty member (my wife) and I were discussing her idea to incorporate some video work and digital storytelling into one of her classes. She commented that she’d probably need to find some funding to purchase some video cameras for them to use. But no, with disposable video cameras, cell phone cameras, and other low end video devices you really no longer have that technological barrier. And with YouTube and its ilk, the transmission side is easy too. Which is nice; the faculty member can focus on the learning objectives, and keep the technology out of the way.
- Collaboration Webs — time frame 1yr: I’ve been working blogs and other collaborative tools into classroom and project work for the last couple of years — or at least trying to. I haven’t had a lot of success getting people to jump in. But again the technology barriers are coming down and I think the time is here. In fact I’m in the middle of evaluating a project management tool, webAsyst, is looking very promising.
- Mobile Broadband — time frame 2-3yr: I resisted the pull of the Blackberry for a couple of years — heck I don’t really talk on the phone a lot, and I get tired of email real fast. But several key staff members had them, and I figured we’d be better able to support them if we were familar with the technology. And I’m hooked! But I’m not talking any more, and I’m not doing any more email. I’m reading RSS feeds with the latest news from the New York Times, Chronicle of Higher Ed, and several of my blog regulars — I can show people my latest photos on Flickr through the Yahoo Mobile program. As iPhones, Blackberries, and the other ’smart’ phones become more pervasive — and I agree that 2 – 3 years is about right — this will be a terrific avenue for delivering education experiences.
- Data Mashups — time frame 2-3yr: When you think data mashups, do you first think of something involving Google maps? Those kind of things are cool, but I think we have all sorts of mashing going on without maps. A lot of the new Facebook apps pull information from different places — isn’t this a mashup. This blog includes my flickr photos — check out the photos page — that’s a mashup. Between the rich APIs now available, and RSS its getting easier to do this kind of thing all the time. I think the technology is here now, but perhaps it’ll take a couple of more years for everyone to realize it.
- Collective Intelligence — time frame 4-5yr: Wisdom of Crowds, Wikipedia, Digg, and all that sort of stuff. How about the reviews on Amazon? — I find myself not buying things that I might have in the past based upon the reviews. Again, I think this is here now, but in the academic world we just need to be convinced.
- Social Operating systems — time frame 4-5yr: This is a really interesting idea, that information will become more organized around people instead of content. In the educational world this is something we can embrace. After all anyone can go to the library and read the same books utilized in the classroom — but its the connection with people, both the faculty and fellow learners, that makes higher education what it is. They reference the emerging MS Outlook Xobni, which I highlighted in a prior post, and Yahoo Life! Both look very cool — if this is the future then bring it on.
A couple of phrases pulled out: “A need for innovation and leadership.” “Deliver to mobile devices.” “Collaborative learning.”
2008 Horizon Report | nmc
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