The New Media Consortium’s Horizon Report – Higher Education Edition 2016 is out and the insights from it will help you have a better grip and will definitely help authorities understand the impact of emerging technologies on education.
The research behind the NMC Horizon Report: 2016 Higher Education Edition is jointly conducted by the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI), an EDUCAUSE Program. This NMC Horizon Report series charts the five-year horizon for the impact of emerging technologies in colleges and universities across the globe.
Key topics from the report are mentioned below:
— 18 topics are being analyzed in the NMC Horizon Report: 2016 Higher Education Edition, indicating the key trends, significant challenges, and important technological developments that are very likely to impact changes in higher education around the world over the next five years.
— 18 key topics include six key trends, six significant challenges, and six important developments in educational technology are placed directly in the context of their likely impact on the core missions of universities and colleges, and detailed in succinct, non-technical, and unbiased presentations. Each has been tied to essential questions of relevance, policy, leadership, and practice.
— The trends are segregated along three adoption horizons (terms) addressing the higher education challenges and solutions that can be taken to overcome the same along with their impact. The near-term horizon assumes the likelihood of entry into the mainstream for higher education institutions within the next 12 months; the mid-term horizon, within two to three years; and the far-term, within four to five years.
Along with these trends, the report elaborates on the challenges that will be faced throughout these terms and segregates them into solvable, difficult and wicked challenges.
Solvable Challenges:
Blending Formal and Informal Learning
Improving Digital Literacy
Difficult Challenges:
Competing Models of Education
Personalizing Learning
Wicked Challenges:
Balancing Our Connected and Unconnected Lives
Keeping Education Relevant
Let’s look into each term to know more about it:
Near Term: Short-Term Impact Trends: Driving Ed Tech adoption in higher education for the next one to two years.
“The growing focus on measuring learning describes a renewed interest in assessment and the wide variety of methods and tools that educators use to evaluate, measure, and document academic readiness, learning progress, skill acquisition, and other educational needs of students.”
— Increasing number of students believe that the impact of analytics reports on their academic performance is very positive and therefore Universities are also experimenting with more portable, device-agnostic degree and course options that can track, store, and leverage data from a variety of contexts.
— The use of blended learning approach and how this can help the higher education sect in multiple ways is something that is very interesting. Blended learning takes many forms in higher education. Virtual laboratories, for instance, provide opportunities for risk-free, repeatable experimentation and simulation, while allowing universities to serve students beyond the limits of physical laboratory space. Additionally, the flipped classroom is a blended learning model, in which students can access discussion forums, problem-solve, and actively apply their newfound knowledge. And these are just some of the reasons that this is going to be worth of all the effort universities are going to make it happen.
Mid Term: Mid-Term Impact Trends: Driving Ed Tech adoption in higher education for three to five years
On the mid-term horizon it is expected that More universities will be helping to facilitate emerging pedagogies and strategies, such as the flipped classroom, by rearranging learning environments to accommodate more active learning.45 Educational settings are increasingly designed to support project-based interactions with attention to greater mobility, flexibility, and multiple device usage. Institutions are upgrading wireless bandwidth to create “smart rooms” ”
— Redesigning the learning spaces and altering it to student centered learning spaces will be significant. Along with this various learning methods like PBL (project based learning) will come into use.
— Learning approaches that engages students in critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and self-directed learning are going to be the key to efficient education system. Focus will not only remain to the curriculum but will also spread across proving students with opportunities where they get to connect with real world.
Far Term: Long-Term Impact Trends: Driving Ed Tech adoption in higher education for five or more years
“In order to breed innovation and adapt to economic needs, higher education institutions must be structured in ways that allow for flexibility while spurring creativity and entrepreneurial thinking.”
— Educators will be working to develop new approaches and programs based on models that stimulate top-down change and can be implemented across a broad range of institutional settings. Use of technology will reflect as a catalyst for promoting a culture of innovation in a more widespread, cost-effective manner, and provides a compelling model for higher education leaders to consider
— With increasing digitization, additional learning opportunities for students outside of institutions, and universities are gradually changing to accommodate evolving expectations. In addition to advancing cultures of innovation, there are other signs that higher education will be undergoing a long-term transformation. Emerging business models, like online learning, are also creating fundamental changes in higher education. An interesting take on this trend has been described as adopting the “Education-as-aService” (EaaS) model, a delivery system that unbundles the components of higher education, giving students the option to pay for only the courses they want and need.
Check out the full report here.
