I always find the Horizon Report an interesting read to keep track of emerging trends. It is heartening to see that much of what is being implemented at Stonefields School aligns with what is highlighted in the report.
The NMC and the Horizon Project are best known for its flagship Horizon
Reports that focus on higher education and Y1-13 globally. Now, with 10
years of research that has helped us understand the nature and range of
impact of emerging technolgies, the 100 thoughtleaders involved in the
retreat have moved from reflections and metalearnings from the last
decade, to notions of renewal and transformation, to ultimately
metatrends and action.
Out of the discussion, 28 metatrends were identified. Of these, the
ten most significant are;
1. The world of work is increasingly global and increasingly
collaborative. As more and more companies move to the global
marketplace, it is common for work teams to span continents and time
zones. Not only are teams geographically diverse, they are also
culturally diverse.
2. People expect to work, learn, socialize, and
play whenever and wherever they want to. Increasingly, people
own more than one device, using a computer, smartphone, tablet, and
ereader. People now expect a seamless experience across all their
devices.
3. The Internet is becoming a global mobile network — and
already is at its edges.
Mobithinking reports there are now more than 6 billion active cell phone
accounts. 1.2 billion have mobile broadband as well, and 85% of new
devices can access the mobile web.
4. The technologies we use are increasingly cloud-based and
delivered over utility networks, facilitating the rapid growth of online
videos and rich media. Our current expectation is that the
network has almost infinite capacity and is nearly free of cost. One
hour of video footage is uploaded every second to YouTube; over 250
million photos are sent to Facebook every day.
5. Openness — concepts like open content, open data, and open
resources, along with notions of transparency and easy access to data
and information — is moving from a trend to a value for much of the
world. As authoritative sources lose their importance, there is
need for more curation and other forms of validation to generate
meaning in information and media.
6. Legal notions of ownership and privacy lag behind the
practices common in society. In an age where so much of our
information, records, and digital content are in the cloud, and often
clouds in other legal jurisdictions, the very concept of ownership is
blurry.
7. Real challenges of access, efficiency, and scale are
redefining what we mean by quality and success. Access to
learning in any form is a challenge in too many parts of the world, and
efficiency in learning systems and institutions is increasingly an
expectation of governments — but the need for solutions that scale often
trumps them both. Innovations in these areas are increasingly coming
from unexpected parts of the world, including India, China, and central
Africa.
8. The Internet is constantly challenging us to rethink learning
and education, while refining our notion of literacy.
Institutions must consider the unique value that each adds to a world
in which information is everywhere. In such a world, sense-making and
the ability to assess the credibility of information and media are
paramount.
9. There is a rise in informal learning as individual needs are
redefining schools, universities, and training. Traditional
authority is increasingly being challenged, not only politically and
socially, but also in academia — and worldwide. As a result,
credibility, validity, and control are all notions that are no longer
givens when so much learning takes place outside school systems.
10. Business models across the education ecosystem are changing.
Libraries are deeply reimagining their missions; colleges and
universities are struggling to reduce costs across the board. The
educational ecosystem is shifting, and nowhere more so than in the world
of publishing, where efforts to reimagine the book are having profound
success, with implications that will touch every aspect of the learning
enterprise.
