Can we definitely predict the future of instructional technologies? – Neighborhood College Every day

As the Instructional Technologies Council (ITC) continues our series of articles focusing on the anticipated influence of distance understanding more than the subsequent ten years, it is affordable for readers to be at least somewhat skeptical. So, I decided to do a small experiment with a comfort sample and a sample of 1.

About 13 years ago, the assistant president of my college told me that “the president wanted to” predict the leading 5 technological innovations that would influence larger education in the subsequent handful of years. My 1st reaction was anger. Soon after all, as I paraphrased in a 2010 weblog post, asking me to predict how technologies will impact education is like asking the Wright Brothers how several frequent flyer miles will impact industrial air travel (I did not make that comment, but I can not don’t forget who did it). My second reaction was to refer him to Horizon Reports. Soon after all, why must I do the perform when Educause has currently accomplished it.

Editor’s note: The Council on Instructional Technologies continues a series of articles focusing on the anticipated influence of distance understanding more than the subsequent ten years.

I lastly buckled down and wrote a note that at some point became a weblog post. Let’s see how my predictions that “the most critical technological advances are not ‘things’, they are usability improvements primarily based on what currently exists.” The actual innovation will come from the ideas of convergence, integration, decoupling, social networks and predictive analytics” that have passed immediately after a lot more than a decade.

How did I do?

At the time, I was somewhat familiar with the ideas of incremental vs. disruptive innovation, and I believed Dr. Christensen was a bit incorrect when he predicted disruptive innovation due to educational technologies, but I was confident there would be incremental innovation. Soon after all, as a keynote speaker at the extended-ago ITC Annual Conference after mentioned, “Technology does not adjust pedagogy, educators adjust pedagogy.” And then he created some quite uncomfortable but proof-primarily based comments about the intransigence of educators.

In 2010, I predicted convergence. To see if this has come to fruition, verify your audio/visual departments and libraries. At a single time we had 16mm film projectors, 35mm film projectors, turntables, tape recorders, VHS video players, three/4” video players, overhead projectors and so on. These days, nonetheless pictures, moving pictures, text, audio and video all come from our laptops by way of a single projector. Libraries have also migrated (converged to) largely digital collections. So yes, the future can be predicted. It is a single of a single.

What about integration? We see examples of this taking place, but possibly not in such an apparent way. College these days hold grades, attendance and course components on the exact same platform, which was not the case a decade ago. But our LMS and ERP systems are nonetheless separate goods from various vendors, not as tightly integrated as they could be. So let’s give it .five for 1.five out of two.

Separation? Definitely! In the weblog, I predicted, to a higher or lesser extent, the development of competency-primarily based education (CBE), microcredit, and open educational sources. It is all taking place. Plus, we see numerous combinations and permutations of separation, integration, and convergence occurring simultaneously. We separated the credentials from the completed degrees and awarded profession certificates and business certificates by way of our non-credit or workforce improvement operations and then articulated them back to college credits major to complete degrees. Or at least we must! I claim this is a ideal prediction which brings me to two.five out of 3.

Unexpected positive aspects and disadvantages

Now, my predictions about social networks may perhaps be a stretch, if you assume I am referring to on the web solutions like Facebook or Twitter. I did not and I did not, but solutions like these enable us to network in approaches we could not just before. I in fact meant harnessing the energy of human interaction by way of technologies. For instance, a single day, my then-teenage son began operating in and out of his bedroom and creating cup immediately after cup of tea, holding each and every a single up to his webcam. Turns out he was playing pc games with a worldwide cohort of “good friends” and a person from England decided to teach an American kid how to make a “suitable mug.” This sort of improvised educational encounter would have been unthinkable just a handful of years earlier.

When was the final time you Googled a job candidate or posted an ad on a social network? Have you ever discovered how to repair a car or truck by watching a YouTube video? I have. Do you use a listserv to gather answers to challenging inquiries or e mail a colleague to see how they solved one thing related? You do it each day, never you – or at least you did some of them. I take the win. three.five out of 4.

Ultimately, predictive analytics. Yes, we are attempting. Early warning systems, dashboards, and other tools are starting to permeate larger education. But we are nowhere close to exactly where our colleagues from business enterprise and business are. I anticipated we would be additional along by now. I only give myself a score of .25, creating my all round score three.75 out of 5 or a total of 75% accuracy 13 years immediately after my 2010 predictions.

Let’s answer the query in the title. Can we predict the future of educational technologies? Of course, completely, at times, for broad basic categories.