The Horizon Report 2009 was published by the New Media Consortium a couple of weeks ago and now that I have had a chance to read through it I am pleased to see that two of the things I have been investigating and talking about are actually now on the horizon and coming towards us at a pace … mobiles and cloud computing.
Mobiles first … and infact Christine blogged about this only today. I used to only want a mobile to text and make calls if I was out and about. Now I have 2 mobiles … my ‘home’ one that essentially still does that (with the odd photo taken and video captured) and my work one … a Windows mobile with a slidy keyboard that I feel lost without when I am working. It helps to organise me in that I can check my Outlook emails, calendar and tasks wherever I am; I can communicate in a number of different ways … phone and text but more often email andTwitter tweets; I can make notes on it during meetings so I don’t need to carry pen and paper or laptop … and then I can email those notes to myself for later use. And thinking about it … aren’t these all things we want our learners to do … be organised, communicate, make useful/useable notes …? And these are only some of the things that mobiles can do today …
Cloud computing … another phrase (like Web 2.0) that needs to be explained but essentially means stuff that you used to do only on your computer that you can now do online … like word process and create spreadsheets (e.g. Google Docs), save your favourite websites (e.g. delicious) and store your files (e.g.Sky Drive). Stepping aside from the potential downsides of ‘cloud computing’ (where is your data actually stored, who can really get access to it, what if the service provider disappears …?) the main benefit of all of this is that provided you have access to the web you have access to your stuff. And if you choose to share your stuff … then that access is available to others … for example, fellow learners, tutors, moderators, examiners, parents ….
I haven’t spoilt the ending of this ’story’ by revealing all of the things on the horizon (or even just around the corner) with regard to technology in education … if you want to know more then the Horizon Report 2009 is well worth a read.
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