Top 10 Trends For 2008
What are the trends about?
The following themes have been identified by CORE as trends in eLearning that will impact on the way in which early childhood centres, schools and tertiary institutions in NZ embrace and adopt eLearning technologies and practices in the coming year. While the focus is primarily on trends associated with technology use in education, some do not. These have been selected because of the way in which they impact on the way(s) in which the technologies can or will be used. Within each overall trend there are several sub-themes that are listed or explained.
How should the trends be used?
The purpose in presenting these trends is to provide a glimpse of the ‘big picture’ within which we operate in the education system. It is important to recognize that these are trends, not specific predictions. As such, they are presented to provoke further research, investigation and discussion, in order to determine how they may affect the strategic planning within your educational institution.
Feedback and discussion
Each of the trends is presented here in summary form, with a discussion forum attached. You are invited to share your thoughts, questions or comments on each of the themes in this forum. The forums can be used to share stories of the trends are impacting on your centre/school, asking questions for clarification or sharing links to further information.
Further information
CORE staff are available to speak to staff groups about any of these themes, or to present to cluster groups or at conferences, either in person or using an online synchronous communications system. Further inquires should be addressed to: tentrends@core-ed.net
1. "mash ups"
2. Advanced networks and schools "loops"
4. Virtualisation and web-based applications (cloud computing)
5. Literacy development for the digital age
6. Immersive online environments & visualization tools
8. Rise in use of mobile technologies
10. Changes in User Interface Experience
NOTE – there are, of course, a number of issues and trends that we considered in the compilation of this list, but we settled on these as the “Hot Topics” because of their relevance to New Zealand, and because of their contentious nature.
We invite you to provide your feedback and comments below to let us know how you feel about them.
Each month we will take one of these trends and develop it a little further, with some ‘Core Questions’ that we’ll be posing and inviting comment on.