By Peter Murgatroyd

The fourth edition of the annual K-12 series of the NMC Horizon Report examines emerging technologies for their potential impact and use in teaching and learning in the primary and secondary school environment in the next five years.   Trends and challenges that will drive technology adoption in schools are also highlighted.  The K-12 Horizon report is a collaborative research effort between New Media Consortium, the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), and the International Society for Technology in Education. The Report identifies six technologies to watch across three adoption horizons over the next one to five years:

• Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less
• Mobiles and Apps
• Tablet Computing
• Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years
• Game-Based Learning
• Personal Learning Environments
• Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years
• Augmented Reality
• Natural User Interfaces

The massive increase in the use of mobile devices and  apps in the classroom and the rapid development in the tablet  market leading to both more sophisticated and affordable portable devices are the dominant stories of the 2012 report. 

And whilst game based learning remains on the edge of the near term horizon, Personal Learning Environments (PLEs)  – collections of tools and resources to support individual learning -  are gaining significant traction as both concept and practice strategy.  The report notes that there has been a corresponding move away from centralised server based solutions as smart phones, tablets and apps have begun to emerge as an alternative to browser based PLEs and e-portfolios.

Key trends:

• The abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the Internet is increasingly challenging us to revisit our roles as educators
• As the cost of technology drops and school districts revise and open up their access policies, it is becoming increasingly common for students to bring their own mobile devices
• Education paradigms are shifting to include online learning, hybrid learning and collaborative models
• People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want to
• Technology continues to profoundly affect the way we work, collaborate, communicate, and succeed
• There is a new emphasis in the classroom on more challenge-based and active learning

Significant challenges:

• The demand for personalized learning is not adequately supported by current technology or practices
• Digital media literacy continues its rise in importance as a key skill in every discipline and profession
• Institutional barriers present formidable challenges to moving forward in a constructive way with emerging technologies
• K-12 must tackle the increased blending of formal and informal learning
• Learning that incorporates real life experiences is not occurring enough and is undervalued when it does take place
• Many activities related to learning and education take place outside the walls of the classroom and thus are not part of traditional learning metrics

Further reading:

• Emerging technologies for learning
• Research and innovative thinking
• Register (free) to download the report from the NMC site
• Download a copy of the Report on the Horizon EdTech Weekly app for iPad and iPhone
• View a four minute summary of the key finding of the report on Youtube