The Horizon Report is released annually by the New Media Consortium in collaboration with the Educause Learning Initiative. The report focuses on the impact six areas of emerging technology will have on higher education in the next one to five years. This research focuses on applications of technologies to teaching, learning, creative expression, and the format of learning across the fields of business, industry, and education. Qualitative research methods were used to identify technologies included.
I’ve highlighted some of the findings below but encourage you to read the full report.
Six trends to watch:
1. Environment Increasing: costs, demand for new services (students and administration), need for distance education driven, competition from for-profit sector. Decreasing: budgets, student enrollment. Changing: Model of the “typical” student
2. Globalization- Innovation: Development of skilled researchers in China, India, and other southeast Asia nations, contributing to global body of knowledge fueling innovation. Communication: New and continually changing learning space for students changing the way we work, collaborate and communicate.
3. Information literacy: literacy skills of new students not improving when the skills of critical thinking, research, and evaluation are increasingly required to make sense of the world.
4. Research: Academic review and faculty reward out of sync with new forms of scholarship. Barriers to new forms of peer review occurring due to movement away from traditional peer-reviewed paper.
5. Scholarship and collective intelligence: Notion of what an expert is being challenged by reasoned debates of amateur scholars, data collection and contributions encouraging debate of what scholarly work is and who should be doing it.
6. Technology: Gap between students view of technology and faculty
Six challenges to recognize:
1. Assessment lags behind creative work struggle with how to evaluate work taking place in new media
2. Shift/convergence in scholarship, research, creative expression, learning, and the need for visionary leadership
3. Intellectual property and copyright digital ownership, sharing, legal obligation, remixing content
4. Skills gap- use of tools, adaptable curricula, and ease of use vs. need for skills around composition/storytelling/design.
5. Collaborative learning- new ways to connect and contribute in virtual worlds, social networking
6. Delivery of service growing expectations regarding meaningful content delivery to mobile and personal devices
Six technologies to watch:
1. User-created content: students are not just listening
2. Social Networking: students want connections
3. Mobile Phones: students gateway has increased capabilities the new bookbag
4. Virtual Worlds: gives students a chance to collaborate, explore, role-play, experience other situations in a safe but compelling way
5. New scholarship and emerging forms of publication: farther out on the horizon but new tools and ways to create, critique, and publish are influencing new and old scholars alike
6. Multiplayer educational gaming: difficult but getting easier, open-source engines will lower barrier to entry for developers education titles along with commercial ones
One year or less time-to-adoption:
o User-created content using Web 2.0 technologies
o Social networking
Two to three years time-to-adoption
o Mobile phones
o Virtual worlds
Four to five years time-to-adoption
o Emerging forms of publication
o Massively multiplayer educational gaming
Six Seven things corporations can do NOW with this information…
1. Share resources with del.icio.us go here to get started
2. Share photos with Flickr go here to get started
3. Create a blog (like this one) but for a class at WordPress go here to get started or have Tom tell you how here
4. Collaborate on a problem in group wiki…go here to get started
5. Hold a workshop in Second Life…go here to get started
6. Start an organizational social network¦go here to get started OR, better yet, use ours
7. Go to the Brandon Hall Research Innovations in Learning Conference
Good luck! Let me know how you make out.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Janet,
That is quite the list of things that will be happening. At first read one could be overwhelmed with all that will be happening. However, as I was going through the list, I realized that, for myself, I’ve basically covered the whole group. I haven’t held a workshop in SL but I’ve been to one. My one concern is that I see many of the “new” voices expecting to gain entry into many of the fields near the top, expecting that their “learning” takes them above others. Many can use the tools but don’t have the experience in the field nor the understanding that only time on the line can give a person. Do you see this as being a problem at all? Again, great post.
Janet, great post!
The Horizon Report focuses on higher education.
I wonder how closely these higher-education trends and challenges parallel the world of corporate learning?
What if, in the Horizon Report, each reference to ’student’ were changed to ‘employee,’ each reference to ‘faculty’ were changed to ‘training department,’ etc.
Would the parallels hold up?
For example, Trend #6. Technology: Gap between EMPLOYEES’ view of technology and TRAINING DEPARTMENT’S.
Interesting to ponder…
Hi Kelly!
It’s great to hear that you’ve exposed yourself to these new technologies! From my observations you’re ahead of the curve. I don’t think most educators in K-12 schools, higher ed or corporations could say they’ve used these tools in practice.
I agree with you that you can’t trade either education or the ability to use technology for experience. My 13-year old son said the other day that he knew how to drive because most of the video games he plays involves driving. Oh, to be young again… (note to self: next car I buy should be a real beater). I digress.
My opinion is that there is an equivalent number of tech-savvy ‘newbees’ lacking an understanding of pedagogy & learning styles and/or lacking experience with facilitating groups or formal instruction as there are experienced educators/trainers that lack an understanding of technology tools and how they can be used to improve educational outcomes.
The time factor has always been a stumbling point for me. I’ve seen someone with 5 years experience outperforming someone with 20 years experience and vice versa. Performance should drive advancement. Measurement of performance should include the whole enchilada – rewarding excellent outcomes that were a result of experience, education, and the incorporation of new ideas over a period of time.
So, perhaps the video games (learning) my son has experience will make him a better driver but he won’t get his own keys until he practices (gains experience) driving in rain, ice, snow, and with and without friends and family, etc. Practice may put him ahead of the curve. Mistakes will move him toward expertise. And, he may end up a better driver than someone with 20 years of experience because he’s taken the time to incorporate new experiences – stick shift, automatic, truck, car, etc.
I’ll stop blabbing on…we could go off in many directions here. Excellent question – thanks for getting me going.
Janet
Tom-
I wondered too how closely the higher-education trends in the Horizon Report parallel the world of corporate learning. My feeling is that most of the parallel’s would hold up. Is that what you’re thinking?
A lot of the research out there is based on higher education (easier to measure) vs. corporate education. I’m always cautious in making parallels.
The technology trend (#6) that you brought up is a good one to ponder.
Janet
One more resource… Do you Wiki? Would you like to?