Page 2 - Campus Technology, March/April 2018

LO G I N
HORIZON REPORTS IN CT
The 6 Major Barriers to Technology Adoption in Higher Ed (2017)
6 Major Barriers Impeding Technology Adoption in Education (2016)
6 Emerging Trends Driving Technology in Education (2015)
The 6 Technologies That Will Change the Face of Education (2015)
The 6 Major Barriers Standing in the Way of Educational Change (2015)
What Will Drive Technology Adoption in Colleges and Universities This Decade (2014)
The 6 Most Important Technologies to Impact Teaching and Learning in the Next 5 Years (2014)
Report: 6 Technology Barriers in Education (2014)
6 Technologies That Will Impact Higher Ed (2013) The 6 Technologies That Will Shape Higher Ed (2012)
CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | March/April 2018
Change on the Horizon
TEducause’s purchase of the New Media Consortium’s assets gives a new home to the Horizon Report — Executive Editor and hopefully new life to the community behind the report’s forecasts.
THIS TIME OF YEAR, we are usually thinking about much predictions as they were statements from the collective future of education technology,” he said. “We intend to connect change: current technologies impacting higher education, that “these are the things we’re thinking about.” and consult with community leaders as we determine the next emerging tech poised to drive change, and factors that Making futurist statements is a bold thing, because you’re steps forward — and to do so with the care and thoughtfulness stand in the way of progress. Why? It’s the season for the likely to get some of them wrong. “There is no reliable way that this community has come to expect.”
Rhea Kelly
New Media Consortium’s annual Horizon Report, a research to predict the future,” as consultant and longtime NMC initiative that analyzes emerging education technologies and contributor Bryan Alexander noted in his article “How to Be a forecasts their impact in the short, medium and long term. Futurist” in our November/December issue. I would argue that Or rather it was, until the organization abruptly ceased the point is not necessarily to get the predictions right, but to operations this past December. open up a forum for discussion. “[Forecasting methods] can
It goes without saying that NMC’s closure is a heartbreak- ing loss to the higher education field. Not just for the Horizon Report, but also for the organization’s other research proj- ects, conferences, and above all the community of thinkers that NMC brought together.
In many ways, it’s that community that made the Horizon Report so compelling. The information in each report was the result of months of intensive collaboration and research — you can catch of glimpse of that in the public wiki that documented the process for the 2017 Higher Education Edition (still online at the time of this writing). Reading the reports was like joining a conversation about the future of education technology, in which the forecasts were not as
help us anticipate new developments, while giving us time to think through how we can best prepare for and respond to them. Futuring provides us with new ways to collaborate and connect,” Alexander said. “Forecasting not only gives us ways to imagine a better world, but also tools to help build one.”
Now those Horizon Report tools are in the hands of Educause, which recently purchased NMC’s assets. And those are good hands. Educause President and CEO John O’Brien referred to the value of the NMC community in his statement on thepurchase:“TheNMCgavevoicetoaremarkablecommunity of educators and innovators and grew thoughtfully over the past two decades, identifying some of the toughest challenges in teaching and learning and offering important insights on the
Continue the conversation.
E-mail me at rkelly@1105media.com.
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