Horizon Report 2012

I read the Horizon Report always with great interest as it predicts the educational technology trends agenda for the year. Horizon Report 2012 is nothing short of intriguing as it identifies mobile apps and tablet computing as technologies expected to enter mainstream use in the first horizon of one year or less.  Of the six technologies highlighted in the Horizon Report, two were also noted in the 2011 edition. Game-based learning remains in the two- to three-year horizon, as does gesture-based computing in the four- to five-year horizon.  For the first time, Internet of Things is introduced and is seen emerging in the third horizon of four to five years.

The Report’s highlighting of the Internet of Things (IOT) will be a driving force in not only web and internet technologies, but also an ubiquitous part of our lives, seamlessly integrated into our personal lives.  Imagine being able to tag physical objects and being able to connect them to the web.  Ultimately, the IOT extends the way we understand and convey information, thus making objects addressable (and findable) on the Internet is the next step in the evolution of smart objects — interconnected items in which the line between the physical object and digital information about it is blurred.

Ubiquitous computing frees the chip from the computer.   Thousands of chips scattered everywhere there is an object, being tagged as it is produced.  Is this exciting or will it just be confusing?   Educators will have an important say in this development if this technology is to take off.  If the web is one big disorganized mess, what will happen once the physical world expands this messiness.

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