Page 21 - THE Journal, October/November 2018

The initiative is led by Becker, who managed the Horizon Report series for
the now-defunct New Media Consortium (NMC). The yearly Horizon Reports explored the top technology trends affecting education. NMC issued two Horizon Reports each year: a higher- education version and a K-12 version that was produced in conjunction with CoSN. The higher-education technology group EDUCAUSE now produces the higher-ed version, and the “Driving K-12 Innovation” series will build on the work that began with the K-12 version.
CoSN Chief Executive Officer Keith Krueger describes the new initiative as “more holistic” in nature than the Horizon Report series. Instead of creating a document that was downloaded only once a year, “we are trying to create a year- round conversation about technology’s role in driving K-12 innovation,” he says.
As with the Horizon Report series, an advisory board consisting of nearly 100 edtech experts will convene in an online
community to discuss the challenges, opportunities, and emerging technologies affecting K-12 education. The advisory board will then choose the hurdles, accelerators, and tech enablers to be featured in the reports.
Transforming Credentialing
Although the advisory board will have the final say in what the reports will focus on, Becker says one of the technologies the group will be discussing is blockchain — and how it could transform credentialing in the future.
A blockchain is a secure ledger of transactions in which each block builds on the previous one, making the entire chain immutable. When used for financial transactions, it records who sent the currency, who received it, and how much it’s worth. The same concept underlies the use of blockchain for academic credentialing.
With the use of paper or digital transcripts, schools are the keepers of this
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