Horizon Report 2012 – Higher Education

Trend-spotting is an interesting passtime, much loved by the media and futurists alike. However, there are some publications that provide an annual review of global developments that make essential reading.

The internationally recognized NMC Horizon Reports is one of these publications. These series of reports identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact over the coming five years in education around the globe. To create each report, an international body of experts in education, technology, and other fields is convened as an advisory board to work on a set of research questions intended to surface
significant trends and challenges and to identify a wide array of potential technologies for the report.

Each of the three global editions of the NMC Horizon Report — higher education, primary and secondary education, and museum education — highlight six emerging technologies or practices that are likely to enter mainstream use with their focus sectors within three adoption horizons over the next five years.

(I am very lucky to have been an advisory board member of the K-12 Edition since its inception – and am currently immersed in the 2012 edition discussions at the moment).

The 2012 Higher Education Edition has recenlty been published, and is available here. It makes very interesting reading for me as I work with a new cohort of postgraduate students and see how well student capabilities align with the changing landscape of learning.

Key trends:

People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want to.
The technologies we use are increasingly cloud-based, and our notions of IT support are decentralized.
The world of work is increasingly collaborative, driving changes in the way student projects are structured.
The abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the Internet is increasingly challenging us to revisit our roles as
educators.
Education paradigms are shifting to include online learning, hybrid learning and collaborative models.
There is a new emphasis in the classroom on more challenge-based and active learning.