On the Horizon: Emerging Technologies for 2011 (Teaching With Technology

THIS IS THE TIME OF THE YEAR FOR REFLECTIONS AND PREDICTIONS. The word of the year is austerity (we know all about that in academia), and Time's Person of the Year is Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. Facebook is nearing 550 million users, and if it were a country, it would be the third largest in the world. There is no doubt that Facebook has transformed the way we connect and interact in the digital world. Indeed, connected as they are on Facebook, our students rarely use email. * The Facebook phenomenon is one that educational and health care institutions are still trying to understand. But what else is in store for educators in the coming year? * Since 2002, the New Media Consortium (NMC), an international not-for-profit organization, has been publishing the Horizon Report to examine emerging technologies and their relationship to learning in higher education. Each year, the consortium establishes a multidisciplinary advisory committee to examine both published and unpublished articles, reports, and websites and to engage in dialogue to determine current trends and challenges, as well as the emerging technologies we can expect to see on the horizon. This advisory committee, with representatives from inside and outside higher education, will release the final Horizon Report in February 2011. Before the release date, there are opportunities for comment and feedback, and a preview report is available online (http://horizon.wiki.nmc.org). The 20t I preview report identifies four major trends, four major challenges, and technologies to watch for across three horizons. Let's take a peek at the projections for 2011. The Top Four Trends