The Horizon report for 2009 released this month presents technologies to look out for in the next five years. Jen Millea and Kerrie Smith have written interesting posts raising questions about which of these new technologies might become essential elements in the classroom. In forthcoming posts I plan to explore the four themes of mobile computing, immersive/interactive online environments, user created content and people networking.
Briefly, I interpret mobile computing to include the use of smaller computing devices such as net books and mobile phones in a wireless environment. We are currently in the process of trialling the small form factor computers with the view of perhaps utilising them as a cheap and simple option for students before/after the student owned tablet programme which operates in years 7-9. I am not aware of any teachers currently exploring the use of mobile phones as learning tools but there is some literature around which suggests it may happen.
Online gaming and virtual worlds might be examples of the immersive/interactive online environments. This is an area which I have little to no experience of but need to find out more as for our students, games like RuneScape and World of Warcraft are certainly engaging.
User created content and social networking are two obvious areas of technology development which will (or are already) impact on the way we teach our students. The use of wikis, blogs, slidesharing and cloud computing tools as well as discussion forums, community tagging and video sharing are already prevalent in many classrooms. Some examples can be found in this portfolio site I put together for my studies last year.
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