2011 Horizon Report on Emerging Technologies

The Horizon Project, an initiative of the New Media Consortium and the Educause Learning Initiative, tracks emerging technologies for teaching and learning.

The Project has just published its 2011 report:

"The six technologies featured in the 2011 Horizon Report are placed along three adoption horizons that indicate likely time frames for their entrance into mainstream use for teaching, learning, or creative inquiry. The near-term horizon assumes the likelihood of entry into the mainstream for institutions within the next twelve months; the mid-term horizon, within two to three years; and the far-term, within four to fve years. It should be noted at the outset that the Horizon Report is not a predictive tool. It is meant, rather, to highlight emerging technologies with considerable potential for our focus areas of teaching, learning, and creative inquiry. Each of the six is already the focus of attention at a number of innovative organizations around the world, and the work we showcase here reveals the promise of a wider impact."

The near-term horizon technologies identified in the report are e-books and mobiles. The mid-term techs are augmented reality and game-based learning. The far-term techs are gesture-based computing and learning analytics ("data-gathering tools and analytic techniques to study student engagement, performance, and progress in practice").

There is a Horizon Report Wiki where one can follow the discussions about what goes into the annual reports. The Wiki provides links to Horizon research themes, earlier reports, press clippings, RSS feeds for top tech news sites, and Twitter posts.