New Media Consortium’s 2007 Horizon Report

By Tracy Lagana

The Horizon Report, is an alliance between the New Media

Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI), the report describes six areas of emerging technology

that will impact higher education within three adoption horizons over the next one to five years. To identify these

areas, the project draws on an ongoing conversation among knowledgeable persons in the

fields of business, industry, and education; on published

resources, current research and practice; and on the expertise of the NMC and ELI communities.

The Horizon Project’s Advisory Board surveys the field to identify

significant trends and challenges in higher education, investigates

possible topics for the Report, and ultimately directs the selection of the

six topics.

Faculty, students, businesses and organizations use the 2007 Horizon Report to discuss the implications of

new media, information, and communication technologies,

examining the emergence and potential of digital scholarship, collaborative social software to

create global networks for research, new media, and the roles of visual

technology in scientific research and teaching.

This report identifies and describes 6 emerging technologies that are expected to have a significant

influence on higher education over the next 1-5 years. They break them

down into likely timeframes for widespread adoption on university

campuses.

User Created Content – Social bookmarking sites and sites that make it easy to contribute ideas, and content. Example: YouTube.com

Social Networking - Making connections and bring people together. Example: MySpace.com.

Mobile Phone – Personal digital warehouse. Example: iPhone. 

Virtual Worlds – Provide the means for people to network in a way that conveys a sense of existence lacking in other medias. Example: Second Life.

New Scholarships – Opportunity to develop a larger audience. Example: GapMinder.

Massively Multiplayer Educational Gaming. – Engage students in ways that other tools and approaches can not. Example: Rich Man Game.

The New Media Consortium (NMC) is an international 501(c)3 not-for-profit consortiums of nearly 200 leading colleges, universities, museums,

corporations, and other learning-focused organizations dedicated to the exploration

and use of new media and new technologies. The consortium serves as a

method for the development of new applications of technology to support learning and creative expression, and

sponsors programs and activities designed to stimulate innovation,

encourage collaboration, and recognize excellence among its member institutions.

In order to investigate the Who, What, Where, When, Why and How the Horizon

Report has been used, it was necessary to complete the research using a variety of sources. The research was conducted by

using the following sources:

Tagging sites Websites Blogs Videos Slide Presentations

The various sources were used to determine the impact of the New Media Consortium’s

2007 Horizon Report in the community.

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www.digg.com

www.del.icio.us

www.google.com

www.slideshare.com

www.flickr.com

The chart reflects the known number of people using the 2007 Horizon Report

as of November 24, 2007. The research was conducted using Search

results for “NMC Horizon Report” and “Horizon Report 2007”. It was also

determined that out of the del.icio.us initial tags an additional 1048 people saved the tags. It was also determine that there are approximately over 200 videos on www.youtube.com related to the NMC 2007 New Horizon Report. I

was also able to locate 1 Google Blog.

The results indicate that the Report has created an E-Learning Community. The

report has provided the necessary spark for knowledge seekers to enrich their

knowledge through online learning, sharing and socializing to make new friends without

boundaries.

The report has also created an internet marketplace for infopreneurs (especially

knowledge providers and internet marketers) to create, host, promote and

manage their information business effectively in easy-to-use environment.

It has been determined that a wide variety of individuals are using a variety

of methods to link to the NMC 2007 Horizon Report. Research and resource sharing among the Advisory Board was

enhanced by active use of social bookmarking via the del.icio.us web

service, and the resources tracked there became very valuable on the writing of

the report.

The report has affected the community by encouraging the community to create

tags such as the following:

audio blog blogging edtech education english games history k-12 math podcasting research rss science

shucdt social networking softwaret502 t529 teaching technology tools video

web2.0 wiki

Why are various communities using the 2007 Horizon Report?

Learning is at the center of higher education. It is an essential part of the

mission of all colleges and universities.

A change within our educational institutions does not only need to be considered it is necessary. With the

following risks affecting our education institutions it is imperative that we review the trends and challenges in

order ensure that we are not left behind in the technology of today.

Cost rising Lower Budgets Need for Distant Learning Flexibility Instant Access

The key philosophy behind the report is to reinvigorate the process of education,

unlearn traditional approaches and move forward with new technology. This is occurring on a daily basis and can be viewed by conducting a simple online

search.

In comparing the impact of the report, it is notable that four of the topics (social

computing, educational gaming, augmented reality, and context-aware

environments) have managed to stay on this shortlist. It will be interesting to

track the further development of these "hot topics" and how the community will

continue to use the report to focus on these areas.

 

It would also be useful to

investigate whether other key trends of the last years have

managed to become part of everyday life or

whether they didn't meet the

expectations

I think the reports go a long way in illuminating the issues, challenges and vast potential related to technology, media and education in the coming

years. I believe that communities will continue to use the reports as a way to

move forward with new technology.

Every year the New Media Consortium, aims to chart the landscape of emerging

technologies. In order to produce this report annually, NMC enlists the help of a large community of individuals asking questions, reviewing articles, reviewing

earlier reports.

Larry Johnson, NMC’s CEO conducted a workshop for 80+ participants at the

University of Wisconsin in Madison and asked them the following five questions:

What would you list among the

established technologies that learning-focused institutions should all be using broadly today to support or enhance teaching, learning, or creative expression?

What technologies that have a solid user base in consumer, entertainment, or other industries should learning-focused institutions is actively looking for ways to apply?

What are the key emerging technologies you see developing to the point that learning-focused institutions should begin to take notice during the next 3 to 5 years? What organizations or companies are the leaders in these technologies?

What do you see as the key challenge(s) related to teaching, learning, or creative expression that learning-focused institutions will face during the next 5 years?

What trends do you expect to have a significant impact on the ways in which learning-focused institutions approach our core missions of teaching, research, and service?

How would you answer them? Where would you answer them?

By asking questions, reviewing tagging sites, blogs, videos, podcasts, etc.

individuals get to play an important role in the process of completing the reports.

NMC Websitewww.digg.comwww.del.icio.uswww.google.comwww.slideshare.netwww.flickr.com