NMC Horizon Report 2014 (Pt. 6 of 6): Educational Technology on the Four- to Five-Year Horizon

February 14, 2014

When we move into the four- to five-year horizon (time frame) of the latest Higher Education Edition of the New Media Consortium (NMC) Horizon Project reports, we are at the dreamiest expanses of this annual review of key trends, significant challenges, and developments in educational technology—which is just where trainer-teacher-learners need to be.

Horizon_Report--2014-CoverIt’s a lovely area, where we find an intriguingly new kind of virtual assistantsed-tech tools rather than the current human beings working from a distance to meet employers’ needs: “The latest tablets and smartphones now include virtual assistants…Apple’s Siri, Android’s Jelly Bean, and Google Now…Students are already using virtual assistants in their personal lives, yet most institutions have yet to explore this technology’s potential outside research settings” (p. 46).

Stepping beyond the virtual pages of the Horizon Report, we find a variety of resources already exploring where we may be going with virtual assistants: “7 Pros and Cons of Using Siri for Learning” from TeachThought; “Does Apple’s Siri Belong in the Classroom?” from Concordia University Online; and “How to turn Google Now into a powerful personal assistant” from CiteWorld.   

Moving into the other element explored in that Horizon Report four- to five-year horizon, we find people looking for the quantified self  based on data that their tech toys provide them: “…the phenomenon of consumers being able to closely track data that is relevant to their daily activities through the use of technology…these large data sets could reveal how environmental changes improve learning outcomes” (pp. 44-45 of the report). Most importantly, we see visions of where learning, creativity, and technology may be intersecting in significant ways in the not-too-distant future.

If we’re inclined to think the quantified self and these redefined virtual assistants are the latest pre-fad incarnations of technology that offers little to trainer-teacher-learners and those we serve, we need to look back only a few years to remember a period when tablets had not become a standard item in much of our learning environment. A time when massive open online courses (MOOCs) were barely a topic for discussion, and wearable technology was not on the cusp of mainstream adoption in learning via Google Glass. Then think about how quickly we have moved along adoption horizons.

nmc.logo.cmykMany of us have come to value our tablets as magnificent access points to information and learning resources—a form of mobile library in the palm of our hands—and can already imagine Google Glass and other forms of wearable technology becoming part of that learning environment. (Imagine John Butterill incorporating Google Glass into his virtual photo walks and you can already see the potential.) We are beginning, as Associate Instructional Design Librarian John Schank suggested during a panel discussion at the American Library Association Midwinter meeting in Philadelphia last month, to see MOOCs—particularly connectivist MOOCs—as a new form of textbook (a comment that, much to my surprise, seemed to receive little attention from anyone at the session but which strikes me as an incredibly perceptive and right-on-target observation as to one of the many roles MOOCs are assuming in training-teaching-learning). And we’re also seeing MOOCs as ways to inspire as well as evolve into long-term sustainable communities of learning providing ongoing experiential learning opportunities.

We really have never seen anything quite like this because we’ve never had the combination of technology tools and platforms (Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ Hangouts) we now have to create extended in-the-moment flexible learning environments that can facilitate just-in-time learning and create another way to sustain communities of learning long after a course formally ends.

And now we’re looking at the possibility of quanitifed self technology that could provide important information, filtered through learning analytics tools, to make real-time course adjustments to enhance learning experiences. We’re looking at virtual assistants that might be programmed to anticipate and respond to learners’ information and learning needs to the benefit of everyone involved.

If we connect learners through their tools and through collaborations between learning organizations (K-12, higher education, museums, libraries, and workplace learning and performance), we see the potential to further create, foster, and sustain the sort of onsite/hybrid/online lifelong learning that the New Media Consortium inspires and supports through the Horizon Project and its other innovative offerings. It’s a great example of how a learning organization not only provokes thought, but also provokes us to take the actions necessary to create the world of our dreams.

NB: This is final set of reflections in a six-part series of articles exploring the latest Horizon Report.


NMC Horizon Report 2014 (Pt. 5 of 6): Educational Technology on the Mid-Range Horizon

February 12, 2014

With all the justifiable attention given over the past few years to 3D printing and gaming/gamification in learning, it’s not surprising to see these topics highlighted in the latest Higher Education Edition of the New Media Consortium (NMC) Horizon Project reports on key trends, significant challenges, and developments in educational technology.

Horizon_Report--2014-CoverIf we take the additional step of looking at two additional technologies (wearable technology and the Internet of Things) that grabbed the attention of Horizon Report Advisory Board members but were not formally included in the section of the report listing important developments in educational technology expected to “have a significant impact on the practice of higher education around the globe” over the next two to three years (the report’s mid-range horizon), we find wonderfully interconnected resources that are clearly on our training-teaching-learning landscape but haven’t quite reached complete mainstream adoption yet.

The report is a road map for any trainer-teacher-learner who wants to keep up with what learners are currently exploring and experiencing. Report co-principal investigators Larry Johnson and Malcolm Brown, along with lead writer/researcher Samantha Adams Becker, help us by offering background on the two featured mid-horizon technologies and providing links to resources to support our own learning. There are, for example, connections to an article showing how the University of Delaware is incorporating 3D printing into learning and an article showing how learners use 3D printing to collaborate with members of a local artists collective. If we are curious and inspired enough to engage in our own self-directed learning, we easily find other wonderful online resources, including the “3D Printing in the Classroom” video from Marlo Steed at the University of Lethbridge; another video, featuring East Carolina University of Technology Professor of Instructional Technology Abbie Brown, on the topic of 3D printing in learning; the EDUCAUSE article “7 Things You Should Know About 3D Printing”; and “3D Printing in the Classroom: 5 Tips for Bringing New Dimensions to Your Students’ Experiences” from The Journal.  (“Admit you don’t know it all” and “Don’t grade the results” are two wonderful tips that could be applied in many learning situations.)

“3D printing is an especially appealing technology as applied to active and project-based learning in higher education,” the new Horizon Report reminds us—and that suggests that 3D printing in many other training-teaching-learning settings can’t be far behind.

The same can easily be said of the second mid-range horizon technology (gaming and gamification): “Gameplay…has found considerable traction in the military, business and industry, and increasingly, education as a useful training and motivation tool….the gamification of education is gaining support among educators who recognize that effectively designed games can stimulate large gains in productivity and creativity among learners” (p. 42).

Following a link from the Horizon Report to the EdTech article “The Awesome Power of Gaming in Higher Education” provides further context for our exploration of gamification. EdTech writer Tara Buck tells us about “a future in education where MOOCs [massive open online courses], live events and extraordinary gamification initiatives all blend into a new way of learning,” summarizes a presentation by “games designer, author and researcher Jane McGonigal,” and provides three examples of educational gamification discussed by McGonical.”

nmc.logo.cmykAnd that’s where we come full circle, finding the same sort of interweaving of key trends, challenges, and developments in educational technology that I’ve noted throughout this series of articles on the latest Horizon Report. We can’t really look at 3D printing or gaming and gamification in isolation if we want to fully grasp what is happening in our learning environment. Exploring 3D printing in learning connects us to the report key trend of “the shift from students as consumers to students as creators” as well as some of the other technologies tracked through the Horizon Project (e.g., makerspaces and collaborative environments). Exploring gaming and gamification in learning connects us at some level to the key trend of integration of online, hybrid, and collaborative learning, the challenge of keeping education relevant, and other technologies including flipped classrooms, social networks, and augmented reality.

Our greatest challenge, of course, is simply finding and making the time to explore and incorporate into our work all that the Horizon Report and our own insatiable curiosity provide.

NB: This is part of a series of articles exploring the latest Horizon Report. Next: On the Four- to Five-Year Horizon—the Quantified Self and (Digital) Virtual Assistants.


NMC Horizon Report 2014 (Pt. 4 of 6): Flipped Classrooms and Learning Analytics on the One-Year Horizon

February 10, 2014

With the confirmation of flipped classrooms and learning analytics as topics that are “very likely to drive technology planning and decision-making” in higher education this year, the latest Horizon Report from the New Media Consortium (NMC) once again provides anyone involved in training-teaching-learning with the sort of insights, inspiration, and resources we have come to expect from the Horizon Project. And if we look a little deeper into the expanded information provided in the latest report, we have the most comprehensive overview of key trends, significant challenges, and developments in educational technology ever produced by NMC.

Horizon_Report--2014-CoverHaving been lucky enough to have served on Horizon Report advisory boards for four years now, I’ve been as fascinated by what does not overtly show up in each of the published reports as what does. NMC staff annually creates and maintains master lists of tracked technologies that remain accessible on the Horizon Report wiki, but those who rely solely on the reports rather than exploring the wiki have missed a lot—up to now.

Recognizing the gold mine of data available on the wiki, report co-principal investigators Larry Johnson and Malcolm Brown, along with lead writer/researcher Samantha Adams Becker, have given the current list (which includes consumer technologies, digital strategies, Internet technologies, learning technologies, social media technologies, visualization technologies, and enabling technologies) far more prominence by including it on p. 35 of the 2014 Higher Education Edition of the continuing series. And while the near-term (one-year) horizon, as usual, focuses on the two most prominent technologies driving our work, it also feels more comprehensive through the display of the entire table of topics. When we take one further interim leap and look at the results of the 2014 Advisory Board preliminary voting, we add Bring Your Own Device and massive open online courses (MOOCs) to the near-term (one-year) field of study and spot an overall theme: we’re continuing to look for creative ways to engage learners (e.g., through the flipped classroom model), to support them at their moment of need (through the effective use of learning analytics), to make it easier for them to learn (through the use of their own tech tools), and even finding ways to allow them to participate in setting their own learning goals (through connectivist MOOCs) within the broad framework we design and employ in some of our most interesting learning endeavors.

Johnson, Brown, and Becker, in fact, explicitly call our attention to this broad theme at the beginning of the “Flipped Classroom” section of the report (p. 36): “The flipped classroom model is part of a larger pedagogical movement that overlaps with blended learning, inquiry-based learning, and other instructional approaches and tools that are meant to be flexible, active, and more engaging for students.”

We are reminded that everyone in training-teaching-learning is affected by this this model in that it suggests a continuing transition in roles “from lecturer to coaches.” Furthermore, it provides a model many of us are using even without fully embracing the flipped classroom model—incorporating readily-available online videos and other online resources into our face-to-face and online learning endeavors. Among that ever-increasing array of readily available resources are Khan Academy and TED-Ed videos, the UK-based Jorum open educational resources—OER—site from the University of Manchester, and the Indian School of Business in Mumbai, and numerous others are just a Google search away, as I’ve repeatedly confirmed when creating links to learning resources for the adult learners I serve in online as well as onsite settings.

nmc.logo.cmykThe 2014 Horizon Report > Higher Education Edition provides plenty of resources for any of us interested in learning more about the flipped classroom model. The “6 Expert Tips for Flipping the Classroom” article from Campus Technology is a great starting point; it includes the following recommendations: “use existing technology to ease faculty and students into a flipped mindset”; “be up front with your expectations”; “step aside and allow students to learn from each other”; “assess students’ understanding for pre-class assignments to make the best use of class time”; “set a specific target for the flip”; and “build assessments that complement the flipped model”—wonderful tips that can be adapted and should, at some level, be in every trainer-teacher-learners’ toolkit.

Flip_Your_Classroom--CoverEqually useful for anyone involved in the learning process—not just those exploring flipped classrooms—is “A Review of Flipped Learning.” This report from the Flipped Learning Network (an online resource with a founding board that includes Aaron Sams and Jonathan Bergmann, two educators who are considered to be among pioneers in the flipped classroom model even though they openly acknowledge that the term comes from others) further immerses us in the topic in ways that provide plenty of inspiration for adopting (or adapting) flipped classroom practices to a variety of learning environments. Hardcore flipped-classroom fans will find additional information in Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day, the book that Sams and Bergmann produced in 2012.

When we turn to the complementary theme of learning analytics—using increasingly sophisticated tech tools to determine where our learners are thriving and where they are struggling—we see another aspect of what is being fostered through flipped classrooms: engagement with learners in ways that benefit learners and make all of us better in our work as learning facilitators. Among the links from the report is one leading to a video by George Siemens (“The Role of Learning Analytics in Improving Teaching and Learning”) from a teaching and learning symposium held in March 2013. Jumping beyond the pages of the Horizon Report, we find a great summary of “The Growth of Learning Analytics” from Training magazine; a list of “6 Things You Should Know About Learning Analytics” from the Office of the Chief Information Officer at The Ohio State University; and a variety of articles through the EDUCAUSE Learning Analytics page online.

And when we return to the beginning of the Horizon Report > 2014 Higher Education Edition, we’re reminded why the topic of learning analytics is important to all of us: it’s another quickly-evolving educational application that leverages “student data to deliver personalized learning, enable[s[ adaptive pedagogies and practices, and [helps us] identify learning issues in time for them to be solved.”

NB: This is part of a series of articles exploring the latest Horizon Report. Next: On the Mid-Range Horizon—3D Printing and Games/Gamification


NMC Horizon Report 2014 (Pt. 3 of 6): Opportunities Among Solvable, Difficult, and Wicked Challenges in Learning and Technology

February 7, 2014

Any of us involved in training-teaching-learning might take comfort in the idea that we’re not alone in the challenges we face—something made abundantly clear in the latest Higher Education Edition of the New Media Consortium (NMC) Horizon Project reports on key trends, significant challenges, and developments in educational technology.

Horizon_Report--2014-CoverAlthough by definition focused on challenges in academic institutions, the report readily lends itself to serving as first-rate documentation of challenges—and potential solutions to them—far beyond the physical and virtual walls of its intended audience in higher education. Those “significant challenges,” arranged along three distinct time horizons, are grouped into solvable challenges (the low digital fluency of faculty members and the relative lack of rewards for teaching); difficult challenges (competition from new models of education and ways to scale innovations in teaching); and wicked challenges (expanding access to educational opportunities and keeping education relevant) that will take much longer to resolve.   

One consistent theme that connects several of the challenges is the need to help teachers (and, by extension, other learning facilitators) develop better teaching/training skills. It’s an obvious element of addressing the problems of low digital fluency among teacher-trainer-learners, lack of rewards for teaching/facilitating learning, addressing new models of education as well as workplace learning and performance (staff training), and keeping education (and training) relevant.

It’s not as if we’re lacking in options in dealing with some of these issues. The report contains links to a variety of articles documenting creative approaches, such as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation/Davidson College collaboration to “create a comprehensive curicular model of digital studies to support the faculty’s development of digital skills.” With a bit of creativity, we might be able to apply, to other training-teaching-learning settings, what comes out of that collaboration.

Sahlberg--Finnish_LessonsMoving to an even deeper level of engagement, we might find ourselves inspired to seek productive and creative collaborations by the fact that “[e]mployers have reported disappointment in the lack of real world readiness they observe in recent graduates who are prospective or current employees” (p. 21)—something clearly not solely a problem for those in academia. Pasi Sahlberg has already, through his book Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?, provided one potentially fruitful route of exploration for those seeking business-education collaborations. Sources cited within the Horizon Report, including the UK-based JISC, provide other collaborative models through which “schools, public libraries, and community learning bodies” partner to explore information and communications technology in learning (quoting from Wikipedia).

And our own experiences working in and with a variety of learning organizations places us in a great position to tackle a broad and particularly wicked problem: “It is difficult for institutions to stay ahead of workforce needs” (p. 21).

My own involvement in New Media Consortium projects, American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) activities, and a variety of training-teaching-learning endeavors through the American Library Association, has convinced me that collaborations among these three first-rate learning organizations could produce positive results that the organizations and their members cannot accomplish on their own—it’s really no different than the JISC approach to bringing schools, libraries, and community learning bodies together. And I suspect that trainer-teacher-learners with experiences and affiliations far different from my own can readily see equally strong prospective partners capable of addressing the challenge of finding ways to stay ahead of workforce needs.

nmc.logo.cmykThe resources mentioned in passing in the “Significant Challenges” section of this new Horizon Report could (and probably should) keep us busy for several weeks or months. In addition to the references to JISC, we find brief, easy to overlook mentions of the 2013 Report to the European Commission on Improving the Quality of Teaching and Learning in Europe’s Higher Education Institutions; Harvard University’s WIDE World online resource for teachers, professors, teacher trainers, and administrators; and the European Commission’s Opening Up Education and Training initiative in addition to numerous links to shorter articles and videos. There are also abundant reminders that expanding access to learning opportunities relies as much on helping people learn to learn in online environments as it does on technology infrastructure. Di Xu and Shanna Smith Jaggars’ “Adaptability to Online Learning” report through the Community College Research Center at Colombia University is one significant resource that carries us far beyond what can be documented within the pages of the new Horizon Report and is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in helping learners thrive in online learning environments.

Learners themselves seem to understand that we need to be working more diligently to create a vibrant and responsive lifelong learning environment moving beyond traditional silos within our organizations (academic learning opportunities that don’t interact with staff training programs that don’t interact with learning opportunities provided by libraries). There is clearly recognition—at least among Millennials—that lifelong learning has become essential to lifelong success in the contemporary workplace, the 2010 Pew Research Center report Millennials: A Portrait of Generation Next, documented. Expanded interactions among NMC, ASTD, and ALA members alone could produce positive responses to that perceived need and the challenges noted in the latest Higher Education Edition in the Horizon Report series.

What the report does, then, is highlight the challenges we face so we don’t lose sight of them. It reminds us that we are far from alone in trying to resolve those challenges. And it encourages us to draw upon available resources to better serve those who rely on us to provide effective learning experiences that address their—and our—short- and long-term needs.

NB: This is part of a series of articles exploring the latest Horizon Report. Next: On the One-Year Horizon—Flipped Classrooms and Learning Analytics


NMC Horizon Report 2014 (Pt. 2 of 6): Key Trends in Learning and Technology

February 6, 2014

We can easily see, in the newly released (2014) Higher Education Edition of the New Media Consortium (NMC) Horizon Report, a cohesive narrative that helps us understand what we and our learners face not only in academic settings but also in many other training-teaching-learning settings where learning, technology, and creativity intersect.

Horizon_Report--2014-CoverThe newly-expanded “Key Trends” section of this wonderful annual report on  trends, significant challenges, and innovations in educational technology, first and foremost, is itself an example of the spirit of innovation that drives NMC projects (e.g., reports, summits, and a wiki-thon): it provides more in-depth explorations of each trend than have been included in previous Horizon reports, and places each trend within a specific time frame (fast trends, which are driving changes in higher education over the next one to two years; mid-range trends, which are driving changes within a three- to five-year horizon; and long-range trends, which are driving changes in a horizon of five or more years from the date of publication of the report). Again, I suspect that what we’re seeing here has strong parallels in our extended lifelong learning playground.

Report co-principal investigators Larry Johnson and Malcolm Brown, working with lead writer/researcher Samantha Adams Becker, take us from those fast trends (the growing ubiquity of social media and the integration of online, hybrid, and collaborative learning), through the mid-range trends (the rise of data-driven learning and assessment, and the shift from students as consumers to students as creators), and then up to the virtual doorstep of the long-range trends (agile approaches to change and the evolution of online learning) in a way that leaves no doubt as to an overall consistent trend of engaging learners in the learning process through the use of tools that are as useful in learning settings as they are in many other parts of our lives. A key conclusion we might reach: barriers are falling; work and play are intersecting with increasing frequency; and undreamed of possibilities continue to come our way.

nmc.logo.cmykAnyone with any level of involvement in social media understands that the various and ever-growing set of tools available to us (everything from Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to Pinterest, Scoop.it!, Delicious, and many others) provides collaborative learning opportunities not previously available to us. We see, in the 2014 report, the connection between those fast-trend elements of social media and online/hybrid/collaborative learning where social media tools are an integral part of learning. Being aware of data-driven learning and assessment as well as the shift from students as consumers to students as creators draws us further into blended onsite-onsite interactions with social media tools and other resources in ways that are reshaping—at last—how we approach the training-teaching-learning process. (While recently rereading decades-old literature on the state of learning, I was fascinated to see sources from the 1920s calling for a shift from lecture-based learning to learning that had students acquiring knowledge outside the classroom so that classroom time could be used for experiential/collaborative learning opportunities, so it’s wonderful to see relatively new technology supporting that concept through the flipped classroom model that receives attention elsewhere in the 2014 Higher Education Edition of the Horizon Report.)

When we move into the long-range trends, we see agile approaches and the continuing evolution of online learning (massive open online courses—MOOCs—being one of many relatively new innovations that are adding to our learning toolkits and expanding the way we think about and deliver learning opportunities).

The theme of collaboration that is an integral part of so many of these trends takes us down some interesting paths. Libraries, for example, are cited in the report as key partners in the trend toward shifting learners from being consumes to learners becoming creators. Makerspaces and other collaborative spaces are increasingly a part of libraries as learning spaces with support from a variety of sponsors, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services. We also, in the report, see examples of collaborations between learning organizations and business entrepreneurs—relationships where businesses serve as models for an agile approach to learning while connecting learning and learners to the development of critically-important business skills.

It all neatly wraps back into that final long-range trend—the evolution of online learning—in the sense that online learning itself is fostering a level of exploration that makes us question some of the most basic assumptions that have guided training-teaching-learning for centuries: the role of grades in learning, the tension that often exists between traditional instructor-centric teaching and learner-centric learning, and even the increasingly intriguing question of what it means to “complete” a course or other learning experience. (Is completion, for example, defined by a final exam or instructor-defined project, or can and do learners play a role in deciding when then have completed a learning experience, as sometimes happens in the more innovative connectivist MOOCs available to us?)

The report itself offers trainer-teacher-learners a variety of levels of engagement. We can simply read and absorb what is of interest to us; follow any of the numerous links to other articles and resources so we learn more about the trends that are most interesting to us; or start with the report summaries of the trends, follow a few of the links, and then carry those learning experiences into conversations with colleagues face to face and online—which means we’re not only fully engaged in integrating online, hybrid, and collaborative learning into our work and play, but are also helping define the evolution of online learning through our own online learning efforts.

NB: This is part of a series of articles exploring the latest Horizon Report. Next: Key Challenges.


NMC Horizon Report 2014 (Pt. 1 of 6): Tech, Trends, and Challenges in Learning

February 4, 2014

If we wanted to design a course on the current state of technology in learning, we could easily adopt, as our online textbook, the latest Higher Education Edition of the New Media Consortium (NMC) Horizon Project reports on key trends, significant challenges, and developments in educational technology.

Horizon_Report--2014-CoverThe reports are consistently a magnificent learning resource not only for those involved in higher education, but also for anyone involved in workplace learning and performance (staff training) or any other part of lifelong learning endeavors. And the release of the 2014 edition earlier this week—in a revised format that provides much more extensive explorations of trends and challenges—suggests that what we have is a Horizon Report on steroids.

As I note each year while exploring the reports, even the highly-collaborative process of preparing the reports could (and should) be a topic for study and discussion among trainer-teacher-learners interested in understanding how a well-facilitated wiki can inspire learning and produce learning objects. Those of us who serve on the report advisory board become immersed in a combination of well-facilitated research and asynchronous exchanges via the report wiki before co-principal investigators Larry Johnson and Malcolm Brown work with lead writer/researcher Samantha Adams Becker to produce the document that does so much to shape conversations about learning worldwide. Previous reports have documented how the modified Delphi Method approach inspires fascinating exchanges and produces results that survey our learning environment and shape the conversations we have throughout the year; the latest report introduces us to yet another tool—the Creative Classroom Research Model developed through the Up-Scaling Creative Classrooms (CCR) project—that is well worth our attention.

But all of this, as important and stimulating as it is, is just a prelude to the real meat of the report. Glancing at the table of contents tells us where the rest of the document is going to take us.

Key trends this year receive significantly more attention and space; they also, for the first time, are placed within their own horizons: fast trends driving changes in higher education over the next one to two years (the growing ubiquity of social media and the integration of online, hybrid, and collaborative learning); mid-range trends driving changes within three to five years (the rise of data-driven learning and assessment, and the shift from students as consumers to students as creators—think makerspaces here and you’re on the right track); and long-range trends driving changes in five or more years (agile approaches to change and the evolution of online learning).

nmc.logo.cmykSignificant challenges, arranged in the same type of horizons and with the same expanded attention and space, include solvable challenges (the low digital fluency of faculty members and the relative lack of rewards for teaching); difficult challenges (competition from new models of education and ways to scale innovations in teaching); and expanding access to educational opportunities and keeping education relevant).    

Then we arrive at what we have come to expect from Horizon reports: the list of important developments in educational technology, divided into a one-year horizon, a two- to three-year horizon, and a four- to five-year horizon. Flipped classrooms and learning analytics are what we can expect to see having the greatest impact in the next year, according to the report. 3D printing and games and gamification are on the two- to three-year horizon; and the quantified self and virtual assistants are placed in the four- to five-year horizon.

We’ll explore each of these areas in upcoming blog postings and see what they suggest for anyone engaged in lifelong learning. In the meantime, it’s well worth repeating that the beauty of this and other Horizon reports released throughout the year—others focus on K-12 education, museums, and specific regions—is that they are free, accessible, well-researched and well-written, and transparent. Anyone wanting to review and use the advisory board members’ discussions for their own learning purposes has access to them on the project wiki. And those interested in playing a more active role in the Horizon Report process are encouraged to complete the online application form.

NB: This is part of a series of articles exploring the latest Horizon Report. Next: Key Trends.


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