Opportunity Horizon – Gartner: 2012 Top 10 Technologies

Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technologies of 2012

In this press release, Gartner Inc. identified the top 10 strategic technologies of 2012.  I found it helpful that they included their definition of strategic technologies in the opening paragraphs because it helped put into focus the target audience for these technologies.  To me, the projections were aimed towards businesses or IT personnel, but I could see the potential for educational uses in a few of their suggestions.  A couple of the write-ups were definitely geared towards technology specialists.  For example, the description about “Media Tablets and Beyond” had information mostly for IT leaders.

Most of the reviews were slightly ambiguous, but I think that they were only trying to give a general overview of what was to come and not an in-depth analysis.  The potential for some of these technologies in an educational setting was exciting, but I predict that we won’t see some of these advances in classrooms for quite some time.  Two areas that could make an impact in the academic world are “Cloud Computing” and “App Stores and Marketplaces”.  With the idea of “Bring Your Own Devices” becoming more of a reality in a lot of school districts, the potential to create and find applications that supplement learning could be huge.  As well, hybrid forms of “Cloud Computing” could allow students to have not only private storage space, but an external public cloud in which they could get applications and other resources.

Although several of the technologies suggested were very interesting, for educational purposes I don’t know if I would come back to this site.  I think for venturers, this would be a good site to find prospective gains, but because it is not aimed towards education or educators, I would probably only come to this site for personal interest.

Lisa

Posted in: Week 02: The Edtech Marketplace