A Review of the NMC Horizon K-12 Report
The NMC Horizon Report is a publication from cooperation between the New Media Consortium (NMC), Consortium for School Networking and the International Society for Technology in Education. The authors indicate the report “identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, research, or creative expression within education around the globe” (Johnson,
Adams,Haywood, 2011,page 3)Three separate Horizon Reports are generated annually along with some intermittent special editions (http://www.nmc.org/publications). There is the Higher Education Edition, K-12 Edition and Museum Edition. Each of the regular publications follows a similar format having an executive summary; followed by a review of six emerging technologies, categorized in sets of two by their predicted implementation into mainstream education; and concluding with a methodologies section outlining the process of selection and review.
In this review, I chose to look at the 2011 K-12 Edition in some detail. The executive summary provides the reader with both the general reasoning behind the report as well as the specific reasons and context for choosing the six emerging technologies. This is accomplished by summarizing five key trends and five key challenges in current educational technology leading into a short summary of the six technologies being reviewed in the context of reasons why they are labeled with a time prediction for general implementation. An explanation of the process, timeline and general research procedures rounds out the executive summary.
The report then moves on to review the six chosen technologies by providing an introductory paragraph, a more detailed overview, the relevance to education, and some links to practical examples and further reading. The report closes with a more detailed description of methodologies as well as a list of advisory members who participate in the report development via a wiki at http://k12.wiki.nmc.org/ .
I think this report is very valuable to anyone interested in educational technology. It is especially relevant to venturers who might want to know current trends and tendencies into the near future. This would allow them to plan ahead so that their ventures are not obsolete, incompatible or irrelevant before they get on the market. The report in itself might be too technical for the broader educational community but the many practical examples linked in make the report more useful to a general audience. A weak spot in the report is its lack of a critical analysis in the sense of a balanced view between the positive and negative impacts of each technology. This may have to do with the reliance on Hewlett Packard as a funding source. I look forward to reading the upcoming K-12 Horizon Report and have already recommended it to others.
Johnson, L., Adams, S., & Haywood, K. (2011). The NMC Horizon Report: 2011 K-12 Edition. The New Media Consortium. Austin, Texas. Retrieved from http://www.nmc.org/publications/horizon-report-2011-k-12-edition
Tim
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gregcamp 9:02 pm on May 16, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Great post,
Sounds like there is lots of useful information in this report that a technology company or entrepreneur would find useful to stay current with trends and to keep their product or service appealing to the market. The problem with technology is that it is a 1 time purchase for the most part and constantly needs upgraded. This is especially true from a public education standpoint where budgets don’t exist that allow technology to be upgraded and maintained properly. If a venture can come up with a low cost solution to this problem or atleast put lots of thought into it as they develop their product or service their chance at success will increase substantially.
Regards,
Greg Campbell
Deborah S 5:39 am on May 17, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
A really informative summary! As Greg pointed out, it appears the report has a great deal of information that would be useful to educators. I think it’s very helpful that they explained how the items were chosen (a shortcoming of the report I reviewed). Including a prediction about the timeline for general implementation would allow educators to remain close to any new developments with the emerging technology.
Deborah
janetb 4:55 pm on May 17, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for the review. I had looked briefly at the Higher Education Edition and it looked promising. I also had noticed the timeline and thought it would be helpful as a rough outline for planning ahead.
I appreciated your comment about the bias in the report. Big business, funding and politics certainly all play their role in educational technology.
Janet
HJDeW 8:04 pm on May 17, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Tim, when looking at the short list for the NMC K-12 2012 report (http://k12.wiki.nmc.org/file/view/2012-Horizon.K12-Shortlist.pdf), there are significant differences between items identified for K-12 educators and those found in the Horizon Higher Ed report. I found that an interesting anomaly but think that it a reasonable response to varying technological needs and issues at each level of education.
Helen
Denise 4:15 am on May 20, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
HI Helen,
I too looked at the NMC reports and noticed the difference. I actually thought it was less an anomaly and maybe more of a recognition that K-12 is different to higher education? Just reflecting on the UBC cube – K-12 is a different market focus, has different buyers, and maybe different market status and competition.
I thought that there were 3 different NMC reports (including museum education) was a strength of the reports.