Friday, December 12, 2014

Preview of the Horizon Project 2015 #NMChz

There's a preview of the New Media Consortium's The Horizon Project 2015 "a high-level summary of an upcoming edition’s findings ... to provide a snapshot of the topics that will be explored in the final edition." The full report will be published in the new year. The Horizon report use panels of "experts" to identify what they think are trends in technology affecting education. It started with one report and now has a lot of different ones focusing on educational level and region (see http://redarchive.nmc.org/publications) e.g. most recently a European Schools edition.
Personally, I have got increasingly frustrated with the way in which the reports ignore the huge raft of research into learning, teaching and indeed the use of technology in learning and teaching, to focus on recent reports and news. Although there are new things to learn all the time, there are also always things to learn from the accumulated evidence base. Anyway, here are their headline trends:
"I. Key Trends Accelerating Ed Tech Adoption in Higher Education
"Fast Trends: Driving Ed Tech adoption in Higher Ed for the next one to two years: Evolution of Online Learning; rethinking Learning Spaces
"Mid-Range Trends: Driving Ed Tech adoption in Higher Ed for the next three to five years: Increasing Focus on Open Educational Resources; Rise of Data-Driven Learning and Assessment
"Long-Range Trends: Driving Ed Tech adoption in Higher Ed for five or more years: Agile Approaches to Change; Growing Importance of Open Communities and University Consortia
"II. Significant Challenges Impeding Ed Tech Adoption in Higher Education
"Solvable Challenges: Those which we both understand and know how to solve: Adequately Defining and Supporting Digital Literacy; Blending Formal and Informal Learning
"Difficult Challenges: Those we understand but for which solutions are elusive: Complex Thinking and Communication; Integrating Personalized Learning
"Wicked Challenges: Those that are complex to even define, much less address: Competition from New Models of Education; Relative Lack of Rewards for Teaching
"III. Important Developments in Educational Technology for Higher Education
"Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less: Bring Your Own Device (BYOD); Flipped Classroom
"Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years: Makerspaces; Wearable Technology
"Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years: Adaptive Learning Technologies; The Internet of Things"
You can download a document with a paragraph on each of these from http://information-studies.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/successful-event-on-research-in-virtual.html From the short paragraphs that are there at the moment, I find some of section II rather confused, but it isn't fair to judge from a preview, so I will reserve critique until I see the whole thing ;-)
Photo by Sheila Webber: I ponder how  adequately defining and supporting digital literacy is a solvable challenge which we understand and know how to solve, in the virtual world Second Life. Anything seems more solvable with a couple of animated virtual bunnies in your hair.

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