Each spring, the New Media Consortium publishes a Horizon K-12 Report which examines the emerging technologies and their potential impact on and use in teaching, learning and creative inquiry in the learning environment.
An interim report was recently shared at the CoSN (Consortium for School Networking) Conference in San Diego. Below outlines the top 12 emerging technologies, top 10 trends and challenges.
Top 12 Emerging Technologies
The three categories of time-to-adoption indicates how long the Advisory Board of the project felt it would be until these technologies would be provided or used in a significant number of schools.
Near-Term Horizon: One Year or Less
BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)
Cloud Computing
Mobile Learning
Online Learning
Mid-Term Horizon: Two to Three Years
Adaptive Learning and Personal Learning Networks
Electronic Publishing
Learning Analytics
Open Content
Long-Term Horizon: Four to Five Years
3D Printing
Augmented Reality
Virtual and Remote Laboratories
Wearable Technology
Top 10 Trends (alphabetical order)
1. The abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the Internet is increasingly challenging us to revisit our roles as educators.
2. As the cost of technology drops and school districts revise and open up their access policies, it is becoming increasingly common for students to bring their own mobile devices.
3. Customized learning is increasingly a goal for schools.
4. Education paradigms are shifting to include online learning, hybrid learning and collaborative models.
5. The focus of assessments is shifting from what you know (can memorize) to what you can do (portfolio).
6. Openness — concepts like open content, open data, and open resources, along with notions of transparency and easy access to data and information — is becoming a value.
7. People expect to be able to work, learn and study whenever and wherever they want.
8. Schools are beginning to move away from textbooks to web resources and open source books.
9. Social media is changing the way people interact, present ideas and information and communicate.
10. There is a new emphasis in the classroom on more challenge-based, active learning.
Top 10 Challenges (alphabetical order)
1. The demand for personalized learning is not adequately supported by current technology or practices.
2. Divides persist.
3. Faculty training still does not acknowledge the fact that digital media literacy continues its rise in importance as a key skill in every discipline and profession.
4. Innovating pedagogy is a complex process that requires research into impacts, responsive state of mind to technology changes and understanding what pedagogical strategies can make innovation in pedagogy possible.
5. K-12 must address the increased blending of formal and informal learning.
6. Ongoing professional development needs to be valued and integrated into the culture of the schools.
7. Many activities related to learning and education take place outside the walls of theclassroom and thus are not part of traditional learning metrics.
8. New models of education are bringing unprecedented competition to the traditional models of education.
9. Too often it is education’s own processes and practices that limit broader uptake of new technologies.
10. We are not using digital media for formative assessment the way we could and should.
