Trends, challenges, and developments for higher education’s next 5 years

What’s coming up for education and technology over the next five years?  The New Media Consortium’s Horizon Report for higher education* just derived eighteen concepts for its upcoming report.  Check ’em out, and tell the team if you have a project that fits into one or more of them.

A quick note before approaching these: remember that the technology items are only 1/3rd of the current report.  People often forget this, or only pay attention to the tech.  Please remember the other 2/3rds about challenges and developments!

Onward:

I. Key Trends Accelerating Higher Education Technology Adoption

Long-Term Impact Trends: Accelerating technology adoption in Higher Education for five or more years

• Advancing Cultures of Change and Innovation
• Rethinking How Institutions Work

Mid-Term Impact Trends: Accelerating technology adoption in Higher Education for the next three to five years

• Redesigning Learning Spaces
• Shift to Deep Learning Approaches

Short-Term Impact Trends: Accelerating technology adoption in Higher Education for the next one to two years

• Growing Focus on Measuring Learning
• Increasing Use of Blended Learning Designs

 

II. Significant Challenges Impeding Higher Education Technology Adoption

Solvable Challenges: Those which we both understand and know how to solve

• Blending Formal and Informal Learning
• Improving Digital Literacy

Difficult Challenges: Those we understand but for which solutions are elusive

• Competing Models of Education
• Personalizing Learning

Wicked Challenges: Those that are complex to even define, much less address

• Balancing Our Connected and Unconnected Lives
• Keeping Education Relevant

III. Important Developments in Technology for Higher Education

 Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less

• Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
• Learning Analytics & Adaptive Learning

 Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years

• Augmented Reality
• Makerspaces

Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years

• Affective computing
• Robotics

A few reflections: many of these focus on institutional, rather than technological or personal transformation.  There are strong signs of our collective movement towards redesigning and rethinking learning.  The impact of the mobile revolution is still being felt, with ripples of change across campus spaces.

*Full disclosure: I’m a senior researcher for NMC, and am a long-standing participant on these panels.  To be fair, though, this work is based on a Delphi method, which means the results aren’t necessarily identical with my own thoughts.

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