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Horizon Report released (what does it mean for us?)
The 2009 edition of the Horizon Report was released this week in the form of a downloadable pdf. This 6th in a series of annual documents: seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have considerable impact on teaching, learning, and creative expression within higher education.
Though the intended audience is the academic world, past reports had relevance of most of us in K12. We saw those identified trends.
This year’s release is truly ripe with ideas to explore.
I’ll admit, I felt a bit out of touch this year. The new document introduced me to a couple of terms not previously on my radar screen. And it gave me a lot to think about.
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The six selected areas for us to watch and that others are likely to discuss in 2009:
Time-to-adoption: One year or less
Mobile devices: Already considered as another compenent of the network on man campuses, mobiles continue to evolve rapidly. . . For many users, broadband mobile devices like the iPhone have already begun to assume many tasks that were once the exclusive province of portable computers. A number of us are exploring the potential for cell phone use in K12, though for many of us these devices are currently banned.
Cloud computing: cloud is the term for networked computers that distribute processing power, applications and large systems among many machines. Examples of the cloud platform include: YouTube, Flickr, Google. The cloud is invisible to end user. It makes it possible for users to deploy tools that can scale on demand to serve as many users as desired. More and more, we trust our work and our data to the cloud rather than backing up on local machines. We regularly choose the cloud for its plaform independence, scalability, and value instead of purchasing proprietary software. I never actually considered the cloud as a cloud before though I use it extensively, for instance my pathfinder wikis on Wikispaces and PageFlakes, my Flickr galleries.
Time to adoption: Two to three years
Geo-everything: Using the new classes of geolocation tools, it is very easy to determine and capture the exact location of physical objects–as well as capturing the location where digital media such as photographs and video are taken. . . Devices we commonly carry with us increasingly have the ability to know where they (and consequently, we) are, and to record our coordinates as we take photographs, talk to friends, or post updates to social networking sites. Most of us are aware of the power and educational applications of GoogleEarth. The report suggests these tools will soon be used by researchers (with the help of people on the ground) to study wildlife migration or to track the spread of epidemics, using personally geotagged photographs and video.
The Personal Web: Part of a trend that began with simple innovations like personalized start pages, RSS aggregation, and customizable widgets, the personal web is a term coined to represent a collection of technologies that confer the ability to reorganize, configure, and manage online content rather than just view it. This innovation already has major potential for our service and teaching, for information gathering, for media literacy. Should we ensure that all students can set up Delicious accounts to keep track of links that are meaningful to them? How about using Twitter and Facebook with an information purpose–to establish personal/professional learning networks? Should learners set up RSS feeds for their EBSCO searches or to read blogs and news articles relevant to both their research projects and their persoanl interests? Should they use tools like FriendFeed to gather growing networks together? Can we help students and teachers create personally relevant information portals using tools like iGoogle? Can we show them how to find and organize widgets that meet their specific information needs? Will we be able to share with them how to bring our library and database widgets into places that are theirs, like MySpace and Facebook? Can we Pagecast portals that are relevant for particular learning projects or user populations? Take a look at the Unquiet Library’s Inauguration PageCast.
Time-to-adoption: Four to five years
Semantic-aware applications: Semantic-aware applications are tools designed to use the meaning, or semantics, of information on the Internet to make connections and provide answers that would otherwise entail a great deal of time and effort. These applications react against the limits of keyword searching and bring the promise of a better organized Web through used of structured data, meta-data tagging, and social networking. Early examples of semantic search tools include Twine, Hakia, TrueKnowledge, and SemantiFind, Our own awareness of these new tools will further students’ research power. Learners need to be aware of the power of tagging. And we need to add contextual tags our own collections, regardless of format. This movement addresses the issue of information overload. This challenge seems ideal for attack by information specialists. See this EDUCAUSE article and this ReadWriteWeb post to learn more.
Smart objects: Smart objects are physical objects that know something about themselves. They connect the physical world with the world of information. On a simple level, they may be used to keep track of personal collections, for checking items in and out. They will allow us to annotate physical items–like books–with contextual information for users to scan. People can be tagged as well, allowing us, perhaps, to more easily find folks who share common interests at conferences. (Will this happen at bars too?) One library example of this trend is the MacArthur-funded ThinkeringSpaces at the IIT Institute of Design. It presents interactive environments designed to encourage school-age children to tinker in libraries.
Perhaps as important as the trends is the discussion of critical challenges on page 6. The first among those challenges is:
the growing need for formal instruction in key new skills, including information literacy, visual literacy, and technological literacy. The skills involved in writing and research have changed from those required even a few years ago. Students need to be technologically adept, to be able to collaborate with peers all over the world, to understand basic content and media design, and to understand the relationship between apparent function and underlying code in the applications they use daily.
There’s no manual for the 2.0 teacher-librarian. No matter when you got out of library school, these emerging information and communication apps were not likely part of your curriculum.
Tools like the 2009 Horizon Report beg us to consider:
- How might/will we apply these and other tools and trends to make learning more engaging?
- How might/will we apply these tools to help learners find, use, and produce information?
Please share your insights!
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About Joyce Valenza
Joyce is an Assistant Professor of Teaching at Rutgers University School of Information and Communication, a technology writer, speaker, blogger and learner. Follow her on Twitter: @joycevalenza
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