New Media Consortium: New Horizon Reports 2014

I read the New Media Consortium New Horizons Reports for 2014, online:
NMC New Horizon Report 2014: Higher Education

NMC New Horizon Report 2014: K-12

Here are the trends and predictions for upcoming impacts of technology in higher education, with points I found interesting:

Higher Ed
The six trends for High Ed are the following:
1. Growing Ubiquity of Social Media - 40% of the world uses social media (top 25 providers) regularly = 6.3 billion combined accounts

• plus = public aspect
• minus = student privacy concerns

2. Integration of Online, Hybrid, and Collaborative Learning

• hybrid learning, especially, takes advantage of two environments
• can address individual learning paths
• peer-led team learning
• example: HapYak - online interactive polling, lecture recordings, backchannel for synchronous communication

3. Rise of Data-Driven Learning and Assessment

• example: Blackboard Retention Center

4. Shift from Students as Consumers to Students as Creators

• "Makerspaces"

5. Agile Approaches to Change

• promote innovation: inventions, entrepreneurship/business start-up ideas

6. Evolution of Online Learning

• 65% - visual learners (text alone not effective)
• spurred by progress in learning analytics, adaptive learning technology, and new synchronous and asynchronous tools + voice and video tools
• at beginning of 2013, 6.7 million (32%) of students enrolled in higher ed took at least one online course in the Fall of 2011
• to be successful, online education must "encompass interaction, foster communication, and be supported with strong instructor presence" with personalization of the learning experience for the student (adaptive)

page 4

Important developments in educational technology for higher ed:
flipped classroom (see A Review of Flipped Learning and 6 Expert Tips for Flipping the Classroom), learning analytics, 3D printing, games and gamification, quantified self (Fit Bit, for example), virtual assistants (Siri, for example, and remember the Apple Knowledge Navigator video from 1987?)

 

page 35

 

K - 12

This report had some aspects in common with the higher ed one, and even though I don't teach in K-12, in some ways adult ESL has a lot in common with K-12, so I wanted to get some ideas about developments in this arena. Interestingly, in my interpretation, this report seems to be more about shifting education to better prepare students for the world in which we live rather than just technology - really changing education in major ways that are very exciting, much as the authors of Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America propose (see my summary blog post).

 

Key Trends Accelerating Ed Tech Adoption in Schools:

1. Rethinking the role of teachers

2. Shift to deeper learning approaches (more active learning: project-based learning, problem-based learning, and challenge-based learning)

3. Increasing focus on OERs

4. Increasing use of hybrid learning design (see Blended Learning 101: Handbook)

5. Rapid acceleration of intuitive technology

6. Rethinking how schools work

 

Important Developments in Technology for Schools:

BYOD, cloud computing, games/gamification, learning analytics, internet of things, wearable technology