On the Horizon:Emerging Technologies for 2011

Abstract

THIS IS THE TIME OF THE YEAR FOR REFLECTIONS AND PREDICTIONS. word of the year is austerity (we know all about that in academia), and Time's Person of the Year is Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. Facebook is nearing 550 million users, and if it were a country, it would be the third largest in the world. There is no doubt that Facebook has transformed the way we connect and interact in the digital world. Indeed, connected as they are on Facebook, our students rarely use email. * Facebook phenomenon is one that educational and health care institutions are still trying to understand. But what else is in store for educators in the coming year? * Since 2002, the New Media Consortium (NMC), an international not-for-profit organization, has been publishing the Horizon Report to examine emerging technologies and their relationship to learning in higher education. Each year, the consortium establishes a multidisciplinary advisory committee to examine both published and unpublished articles, reports, and websites and to engage in dialogue to determine current trends and challenges, as well as the emerging technologies we can expect to see on the horizon. This advisory committee, with representatives from inside and outside higher education, will release the final Horizon Report in February 2011. Before the release date, there are opportunities for comment and feedback, and a preview report is available online (http://horizon.wiki.nmc.org). 20t I preview report identifies four major trends, four major challenges, and technologies to watch for across three horizons. Let's take a peek at the projections for 2011. Top Four Trends I doubt that any educators would disagree with Trend 1: The abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the Internet is increasingly challenging us to revisit our roles as educators in sense-making, coaching, and credentialing. However, although many (Benner, Sutphen, Leonard, & Day, 2010; Institute of Medicine, 2010) have called for the transformation of our educator role, from knowledge disseminator to coach and mentor, large numbers of educators continue their practice of lecturing with PowerPoint slides and minimal student interaction. Information is everywhere. We need to help learners make sense of information and assess its credibility. Trend 2 is a familiar one: People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want to. Nursing education has a long history of trying to meet the needs of student populations, offering alternatives such as bringing classes to service organizations, intensive weekend courses, and online programs. We understand that this is particularly important as many of our nursing students must balance school and work with family responsibilities. As described in the 2011 preview report, what we have not yet fully recognized is that learners not only want timely access to information on the network, but to their social networks that can help them interpret it and maximize its value. third trend is certainly being echoed in health care forums: The world of work is increasingly collaborative, giving rise to reflection about the way student projects are structured. Health care professionals need to work together in a collaborative manner to ensure safe and quality patient-centric care. Although collaborative learning is needed and we acknowledge the need for more interdisciplinary educational opportunities, we continually fall back to our silos and the practice of teaching to the test. final trend is probably the least recognized by educators across most disciplines: The technologies we use are increasingly cloud-based, and our notions of IT support are I would suspect that many faculty are fairly ignorant of cloud-based computing and do not keep tabs on the structure of IT services within their organizations. Most faculty just want 24/7 support; they are not aware if the support they receive is centralized or decentralized. …