The 2011 Horizon Report
The 2011 Horizon Report was published today.
Each year, the Horizon Report describes six areas of emerging technology that will have significant impact on higher education and creative expression over the next one to five years. There are no real surprises in areas of emerging technology cited for 2011:
Time to adoption: One Year or Less
- Electronic Books
- Mobiles
Time to adoption: Two to Three Years
- Augmented Reality
- Game-based Learning
Time to adoption: Four to Five Years
- Gesture-based Computing
- Learning Analytics
However whilst the impact of mobile devices on learning is becoming readily apparent, the impact of e-books is harder to assess. Of course it may be that students will access textbooks and academic publication on e-book readers, along with the accompanying Digital Rights Management. But I think we may be reaching the tipping point where academic textbooks and research are published online or in electronic editions and are not published in traditional paper based book format. Of course this may be somewhat disruptive for the academic publishing industry! It also raises interesting issues of quality. And in the longer run I wonder if students will shun e-book readers as such preferring to read open materials on reader apps on mobile devices. We may actually be seeing the zenith of the Kindle in just the same way as analysts suggest that iPod sales may have peaked.
