2009 Horizon Report

Interesting project of emerging technologies for instruction:

A wiki documents the project.


Mobiles
A new generation of mobiles appeared on the market featuring multi-touch displays, the ability to access the Internet over increasingly higher-speed 3G networks or by using wifi, and the capability for sensing motion and orientation and reacting accordingly using built- in accelerometers.

Examples include math, music and computer information systems.

Cloud Computing

Examples include:

Media Studies. Using cloud-based applications like YouTube, a media culture course at Pitzer College in California tracks emerging up-to-the-moment social trends through real-time news clips and user-created content posted there. Similarly, courses at Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, NY use YouTube and other cloud-based applications to host media that can- not be hosted using resources on campus.

Geo everything

Examples include:

Medicine. The University of Florida has used a 2-dimensional web-based Transparent Reality Simulation Engine to teach students how to operate medical machinery for several years. Recently, the addition of a GPS-enabled tablet device has allowed learners who are spatially challenged to experience the transparent reality visualization overlaid directly onto the real machine, enabling them to use the machine’s controls rather than a mouse as input to the simulation. Geolocation is used to track the tablet and align the physical machine with the visualization on the tablet.


The Personal Web

Examples include:

First-Year Composition at UWF
http://collegewriting.us
The University of West Florida employs between 70 and 90 instructors each semester to teach first-year composition. This website serves as a resource for teachers and students, ensuring that all classes are on the same schedule and working with up-to-date material. It also includes an online assessment rubric that instructors can use to evaluate and record student work.

Semantic Aware

Examples:

Law. A prototype project at the Autonomous University of Barcelona assists newly appointed judicial officials in resolving complex legal questions based on collected information from prior cases. Developed for the Spanish General Council of the Judiciary, the system uses contextual information to suggest solutions to problems that new judges might typically refer to more experienced judges, potentially speeding up the legal process.


Smart Objects

Examples include:

Archaeology. The way that a single smart object connects to a network of information is useful for many disciplines. Consider a student or researcher examining a group of objects from an archaeological dig. A tag attached to the label of each object, when scanned with a mobile device like a camera-enabled phone, would instantly bring up photographs of other objects from the dig, video of the dig site, maps, and any other media or information associated with the area.