Predictions for 2009

At the start of every year we see a host of predictions about what the future will hold for technology enhanced learning. In this post I’ll give you links to some of them, and briefly try to sumarise.

The Daddy of all annual Technology Enhanced Learning predictions is the Horizon report. This year it looks at Mobiles and Cloud computing in the ‘One Year or Less to Adoption’ category, Geo-everything and the Personal Web in the ‘Two to Three Years to Adoption’ category, and finally Semantic-Aware Applications and Smart Objects in the ‘Four to Five Years to Adoption Category’. There are also sections covering Key Trends and Critical Challenges.

eLearn Magazine has invited many experts to talk about opportunities and challenges that they expect over the next 12 months. Many of these focus on the financial situation and the impact of this on eLearning - for example many seem to think that in the corporate world, eLearning will be again seem as a way of saving money. Other possible trends mentioned are the quiet infiltration of mobile devices, the further development of Open Educational Resources, and the use of more informal online learning environments.

The Educause community has identifies their top five challenges in teaching and learning with technology, in 2009. I quite like the fact that these predictions are more ‘classic’ challenges which will be relevant for our thinking over several years. For example, ‘Developing 21st century literacies (information, digital, and visual) among students and faculty.’. There is a project wiki available as a hub for collaboration in the pursuit of solutions.


Finally, and I'm sure with less well considered conclusions, here's the transcript of my Pete's Crystal Ball session that I ran last month about technologies that could to enter mainstream use at Edge Hill over the next three years. It’s written for a non-technical audience, and so is quite straightforward to read through.