(via Memo From the Monastery)
Printing on common paper? Unbelievable!
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Category Archives: Future Directions
2010 – A roadmap for the future
Futurist Richard Watson has updated his annual trends and technology timeline for 2010. What an interesting conversation starter at a meeting looking at technology!
The map has 16 lines representing everything from society & culture to news & media. There are also 5 time zones representing 2010-2050, so everything that falls outside the central zone (zone 1) is obviously a prediction.
The map is published under a Creative Commons Share-A-Like Licence.
Be sure to look at the full A3 sized image to get the full impact! PDF version available here.
(via 2010 Trends – A Roadmap for the Future)
2010 Horizon Report ~ read it!
The annual Horizon Report has been released, and should be on the reading list of all teachers and librarians around the nation. The Horizon Report is a global effort ~ reflecting the essential global dimensions and impacts on learning of emerging technologies.
For those who are new to the Horizon Report, since March 2002, under the banner of the Horizon Project, the New Media Consortium has held an ongoing series of conversations and dialogs with hundreds of technology professionals, campus technologists, faculty leaders from colleges and universities, and representatives of leading corporations from more than two dozen countries. In each of the past six years, these conversations have resulted in the publication each January of a report focused on emerging technologies relevant to higher education.
Each time a report is undertaken, the NMC uses qualitative research methods to identify the technologies selected for inclusion in that report, beginning with a survey of the work of other organizations and a review of the literature with an eye to spotting interesting emerging technologies.
What’s on the Horizon?
Technologies to Watch
One Year or Less: Mobile Computing
One Year or Less: Open Content
Two to Three Years: Electronic Books
Two to Three Years: Simple Augmented Reality
Four to Five Years: Gesture-Based Computing
Four to Five Years: Visual Data Analysis Methodology
Download the 2010 Horizon Report (316k PDF)
Is this the future of magazines?
Thanks to Daniel Pink for the heads-up on Apple Insider’s demo of the soon-to-be-launched digital edition Sports Illustrated. Time Inc, the largest magazine publisher in the US, has been plagued by declining subscription revenue and layoffs according to Tech.Blorge, so it’s taking a new tact with its magazine content by testing this tablet-friendly version of Sports Illustrated.
Apparently Wired and others are also working on their own digital editions.
I know for sure that the boys at school will LOVE this!
Libraries of the Future
Students and researchers expect to be able to access information around the clock from almost anywhere in the world. Libraries are at a turning point. As technology rapidly transforms the way we access information, and resources are increasingly available online and in digital formats, the established role of the library as a physical space housing racks of books is looking increasingly out of step with the needs of students and researchers.
JISC’s ‘Libraries of the Future‘ debate has gone digital, with a specially-commissioned documentary. Over 200 people have already viewed the ten minute video, which marks the culmination of a year long campaign.
The Libraries of the Future publication explores the issues surrounding Libraries of the Future, showcases the events and activities of the campaign and looks forward to some possible solutions.
Download the Libraries of the Future Brochure.
This documentary showcases interviews with leaders from JISC, Oxford University and LSE as well as students and academics who discuss what the library of the future will look like.
more about “Libraries of the Future “, posted with vodpod
Future Learning in a Digital Age
I encourage you to read this report from the MacArthur foundation, published by MIT Press The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age (.pdf).
The project began as a draft document posted on a collaborative Web site developed by the Institute for the Future of the Book (http://www.futureofthebook.org) in January of 2007. The draft remained on the Institute’s site for over a year (and still remains there) inviting comments by anyone registered to the site. This recent Report is a redaction of the argument in what is a book-in-progress, currently titled The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age, which is to be published in 2010, after the culmination of extensive research and collaboration face to face and virtually.
Quotes that attracted my attention which have immediate relevance to our planning in schools – both formal and informal:
Since the current generation of student has no memory of the historical moment before the advent of the Internet, we are suggesting that participatory learning as a practice is no longer exotic or new but a commonplace way of socializing and learning.
This puts education and educators in the position of bringing up the rearguard, of holding desperately to the fragments of an educational system which, in its form, content, and assessments, is deeply rooted in an antiquated mode of learning.
Most fundamental to such a change is the understanding that participatory learning is about a process and not always a final product.
According to the report, there are ten principles which are foundational to rethinking the future of learning institutions.
- Self-learning
- Horizontal structures
- From presumed authority to collective credibility
- A de-centred pedagogy
- Networked learning
- Open source education
- Learning as connectivity and interactivity
- Lifelong learning
- Learning institutions as mobilizing networks
- Flexible scalability and simulation
Some wonderful reading and professional discussion could ensue if you can get your school’s leadership team to consider these ten Pillars of Institutional Pedagogy.
I am particularly interested in the focus on virtual learning. For example, Quest to Learn: New York, is scheduled to open in the fall of 2009. Quest to Learn, a school using game-inspired methods to teach traditional and multimedia literacies, is a joint venture between the Transformative Media at Parsons The New School for Design in collaboration with the nonprofit organization New Visions for Public Schools (See http://www.q2l.org/).
I know that while it is difficult for schools and education authorities to fast-track their thinking and to be strategic in changing cultures and educational practices, this report, and the book that will follow should provide an opportunity to mandate future developments.
Emerging technologies = librarian
Thanks to my friend (and fellow chocoholic) Kathryn Greenhill for sharing this fabulous set of slides and presentation - which really puts into perspective what librarians should be about – if they aren’t already!!
The challenges are bigger in schools – emerging technologies are not seen as core business! But let’s be clear about this. We are not talking about ‘using’ technology – but rather about changing our whole mode of operation to deal with disruptive change – and dare I say it? to actively create disruptive change for the sake of the learners in our schools.
Kathryn is a tertiary emerging technologies librarian. What she shares is equally vital and relevant for schools.
From Tim Berners-Lee to … Muriel?
Twenty years ago today, Tim Berners-Lee wrote his original proposal for a better kind of linked information system. He was doing consulting for CERN in Switzerland, and found that its communication infrastructure was leading to information loss. So he proposed a solution using 
something called Hypertext. This led to the Hypertext Markup Language, or, as it’s more commonly known now, HTML. That in turn, led to the World Wide Web.
Were you around to see all these changes? I certainly was, and I definitely remember the trouble I had teaching teachers the concept of the WWW, what it might do for learning, and how to go about using it. Navigation nightmare – that’s what it was! But now we all use the Net for stuff – and mostly we incorporate it into our learning experiences for our students, albeit badly at times. But the argument is won and we have moved onto the whole new media thing – and the relevance of connectedness.
So what’s next?
In the TED Talk below Tim Berners-Lee provides insight into developments that will power the semantic web, and the basis for it’s development which is rooted in linked data. Way back in 2006 Tim was already writing about ‘linked data‘ which no doubt explains the advances made in subsequent years in semantic web research. As he explained then
The Semantic Web isn’t just about putting data on the web. It is about making links, so that a person or machine can explore the web of data. With linked data, when you have some of it, you can find other, related, data.
Now we understand the potential of the semantic web differently and the implications are profound. You must read The Future of Federated Search: Muriel doesn’t search, but DFAST does, by Lee LeBlanc. This will give you a ‘picture’ of what might be – in a way that we can understand. I would never have understood what Tim was trying to explain in his original proposal for the web. But now I understand virtual environments and crave interoperability and interactivity 24/7! I won’t be contributing to the evolution any time soon, like the folks over at LinkedOpenCommunity at W3C SWEO Community, but I sure am grateful for their efforts!
A couple of snippets here, then watch the video 
Our information seeking behaviors will come to be shaped by the information we seek. Devices and the access channels we seek information through will further define our search behaviors. The computer is only one of these devices; interaction search technologies another.
In 1995, a user expended time searching; in 2035, a user spends precious time thinking -differently. The days of sitting in front of a dumb search box are over. Users no longer pound the keys in frustration getting zero results or billions or results. How will this happen?
Empowering New Learners
In this film, Heppell makes his way through London, describing his vision for schools, meeting with kids , and exploring ideas for learning design and integration of technology in 21st century learning.
more about “Empowering New Learners“, posted with vodpod
Horizon Report – K12 at last!
The Horizon Report 2009 K-12 is here! Naturally I’m thrilled to bits, for professional and personal reasons.
Firstly, because the Horizon reports, that have been released since 2004 and which have provided critical information for educators about emerging technologies and their impact on society and education – has now released its first report for K-12. Horizon.K12 focuses on emerging technologies for elementary and secondary learning institutions.
Secondly, I was so lucky to be included on the Advisory Panel of the K-12 Report. Just being part of the process was amazing – but seeing such a breadth of information, and engaging in the process of filtering was an education in itself. Much material was covered, as we read, filtered and sifted priorities – we’ve seen what didn’t make it into the report – so maybe we got to know what might come next
While there are many local factors affecting the practice of education, there are also issues that transcend regional boundaries, questions we all face in K-12 education, and it was with these in mind that this K12 report was created. The hope is that the report is useful to educators worldwide, and the international composition of the Advisory Board reflects the care with which a global perspective was assembled.
Information on all the Horizon Reports may be found, and downloaded, at
http://www.nmc.org/horizon. The Horizon K-12 Report may be downloaded here.
