scott klepesch's List: Horizon Report

• The idea of a single portable device that can make phone calls, take pictures,  record audio and video, store data, music, and movies, and interact with the  Internet — all of it — has become so interwoven into our lifestyles that it is  now surprising to learn that someone does not carry one
• In a marketplace that turns out 1.2 billion new phones each year, innovation is  fluid and ever-present.
• A new generation of mobiles appeared on the market featuring multi-touch  displays, the ability to access the Internet over increasingly higher-speed 3G  networks or by using wifi, and the capability for sensing motion and orientation  and reacting accordingly using built- in accelerometers
• These new mobile applications have nothing to do with making phone calls.  Instead, they expand the capacity of mobiles to keep us in touch with  information and activities that we want while we are on the move

  • Think in terms of the classroom and access to information
• The rapid pace of innovation in this arena continues to increase the potential  of these little devices, challenging our ideas of how they should be used and  presenting additional options with each new generation of mobiles
• More sophisticated tools that tap into the unique capabilities of mobile devices  like the touch screen, the camera, the microphone, and the accelerometer are  quickly emerging
• Language learners can look up words; practice listening, speaking, and writing;  and compare their pronunciation with a native speaker’s. Graphing calculators  display 3D graphs that can be rotated with a finger on the touch screen or  viewed from different angles by tilting the phone.
• is a custom application commissioned by Stanford University that includes campus  maps, course listings, the campus directory, current sports scores, and other  campus-related information; course registration, course history, and grades are  planned for future

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• mart objects can be used to digitally manage physical things, to track them throughout their lifespan, and to annotate them with descriptions, opinions, instructions, warranties, tutorials, photographs, connections to other objects, and any other kind of contextual information imaginable.
• The vision for the future of smart object technology is a world of interconnected items in which the line between physical object and digital information is blurred
• eference materials, household goods, sports equipment: an actual instance of anything a person might need would be discoverable using search tools on computers or mobile devices. Further, while looking at an object, a prospective buyer could call up reviews, suggestions for alternate or related purchases, videos of the item being used, and more, as well as finding out whether something similar lay forgotten in the garage back home.

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• is that eventually it might be able to help people solve very difficult problems by presenting connections between apparently unrelated concepts, individuals, events, or things — connections that it would take many people many years to perceive, but that could become obvious through the kinds of associations made possible by semantic-aware applications

• Geolocation technology is not new, but it is now commonly available in a growing range of devices like mobile phones, cameras, and other handhelds; at the same time, the software tools we use every day are beginning to include features that make use of geolocative data
• Mobile learners can receive context-aware information about nearby resources, points of interest, historical sites, and peers seamlessly, connecting all this with online information for just-in-time learning. Social networking tools for handheld and mobile devices or laptop computers can already suggest people or places that are nearby, or show media related to one’s location

• Development platforms layered onto the cloud infrastructure enable thin-client,  web-based applications for image editing, word processing, social networking,  and media creation. Many of us use the cloud, or cloud-based applications,  without even being aware of it.
• “The cloud” denotes any group of computers used in this way; it is not tied to a  particular location or owner, though many companies have proprietary clouds.
• Cloud computing makes it possible for almost anyone to deploy tools that can  scale on demand to serve as many users as desired
• Data storage is cheap in these environments
• For many institutions, cloud computing offers a cost-effective solution to the  problem of how to provide services, data storage, and computing power to a  growing number of Internet users without investing capital in physical machines  that need to be maintained and upgraded on-site
• Because they live on the network, applications in the cloud make it easy to  share documents, collaboratively edit, and effectively manage versions.
• Email, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, collaboration, media  editing, and more can all be done inside a web browser, while the software and  files are housed in the cloud
• Further, it is very easy to share content created with these tools, both in  terms of collaborating on its creation and distributing the finished work.  Applications like those listed here can provide students and teachers with free  or low-cost alternatives to expensive, proprietary productivity tools

  • cost-effective nature of cloud computing
• This set of technologies has clear potential to distribute applications across a  wider set of devices and greatly reduce the overall cost of computing. The  support for group work and collaboration at a distance embedded in many cloud-  based applications could be a benefit applicable to many learning situations.

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• • timeframe varies from year to future impact
• In the first adoption horizon we find mobiles and cloud  computing, both of which are already well established on many campuses —  and still more organizations have plans in place to make use of these  technologies in the coming months. Institutions at the leading edge of  technology adoption are also already applying the two clusters of technologies  we have placed on the mid-term horizon, geo-everything and the  personal web

  • more immediate even current
• The two technologies placed on the far-term horizon, semantic-aware  applications and smart objects, are not yet commonly found in an  educational context, although research is being conducted in both areas and the  rate of development seems to indicate that these topics are well worth watching

  • down the line
• It has become obvious that cloud computing has the potential to change the way  we think about computing, and even as we come to recognize how profoundly  different it is, new applications that take advantage of cloud computing as an  infrastructure are continuously arising.

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• The annual Horizon Report describes the continuing work of the New Media Consortium (NMC)’s Horizon Project,  a long-running qualitative research project that seeks to identify and describe  emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning,  research, or creative expression within learning-focused organizations

  • emergin technologies and impact education
• Each edition of the Horizon Report introduces six emerging technologies  or practices that are likely to enter mainstream use in learning-focused  organizations within three adoption horizons over the next one to five years.

  • 6 emergin technologies in report