Current ICT trends as identified by The Horizon report 2010

The Horizon Report is written in collaboration of The New Media Consortium, the Educause Learning Initiative and An Educause Program. Each edition of Horizon describes six emerging technologies or practices that are likely to enter mainstream use on campuses from one to five years. Th reports also include a critical trends and challenges that will affect teaching and learning over the same time frame. The key current trends that are listed in Horizon Reports are identified by Advisory Board researches who rank key trends that are currently affecting the practice the practice of teaching, learning and creative enquiry as the foundation for their later work.
The following four trends are described by The report as the key drivers of technology adoptions for the next five years:

The first and the highest ranked key trend
'The abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the Internet is increasingly challenging us to revisit our roles as educators in sense-making, coaching, and credentialing' (Horizon Report, 2010, p3).

This key trend calls for institutions being considered of the issues implemented by using information technology and making its users aware of its pitfalls as well as advantages by educating users about the accessibility and conditions of use of Internet documents. Executive Summary of the Educating the net generation Handbook identifies a plagiarism as one of the possible pitfall of Web 2.0 technologies and states that ' students were less clear about the conventions for attribution and acknowledgment material published using new media, or about the rights to re-use material produced by themselves and others' (Educating the Net Generation, 2009, p5).

The second most important key trend
'People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want to' (Horizon Report, 2010, p4).
This trend indicates the needs of contemporary students who expect to be educated on flexible time bases through 'an easy and timely access not only to the information on the network, but to their social networks that can help them to interpret it and maximize its value' (Horizon Report, 2010, p4). The expectation of accessibility of information is underlined by the ability to learn in a flexible mode. E-learning technologies that are used to deliver learning on demand can be accessed from online any time and anywhere. However, as the Education the net generation states, educators need to provide 'more flexible access to and opportunities for both informal, formative self-assessment by students and informal, formative assessment by teachers' (Educating the net generation, 2009, p5).

The third key trend
'The technologies we use are increasingly cloud-based, and our notions of IT support are decentralised.' (Horizon Report, 2010, p4)

This trend identifies the expectation of ICT users having ability to access their information on a go via a 'browser-based software that is device-independant' (Horizon Report, 2010, p4). Many Web 2.0 technologies fulfil this expectation trough use of learning management systems capable of containing a variety of resources as wells the ability to store files.

The fourth trend:
'The work of students is increasingly seen as collaborative by nature, and there is more cross- campus collaboration between departments' (Horizon Report, 2010, p4)
This trend identifies the need for collaboration between academics and students and across multiple campuses which arises from the challenges facing the world as multidisciplinary (Horizon Report, 2010, p4). From the teacher
Mayes in Groundhog Day again identifies Web 2.0 technologies as a learning tool which promotes horizontal learning because because it involves the development of a sharing culture (Mayes, 2007, p4).

References

Educating the Net Generation:A Handbook of Findings for Practice and Policy. (2009).
Retrieved June 28 2010. From www.netgen.unimelb.edu.au/downloads/handbook/Sec3Investigation.pdf

Mayes, Groundhog Day again, a keynote presentation at JISC's 2007 Innovating e-Learning 2007: Institutional Transformation and Supporting Lifelong Learning online conference. Retrieved June 28 2010. From http://www.online-conference.net/jisc/content2007/Mayes/Mayes%20-%20groundhog%20day.pdf

Analysis of learning styles and ICT

Analysis of learning styles questionnaire and how it might affect how you learn or teach generally and in ICT learning environment in particular. Do you agree with your profile?

I have used a questionnaire to find out what type of learner I'm for the first time and I was a bit surprised by the outcome of also being a kinesthetic learner. I wouldn't go as far as disagreeing with the outcome of the questionnaire in 'VARK a guide to learning styles' but it made me think how much this type of questionnaire can be or is accurate. If I were to believe in the outcome to be correct, to accommodate my learning as well as teaching style I would have to make some changes. For example being a visual learner I prefer to learn from a visual text. I have learnt to overcome the 'shortage' of academic papers depicted visually by converting them into imagines to make a better sense of them. If necessary I use digital technology to 'interpret' or rather 'translate' a content from verbal to visual language. To accommodate my 'preference' for kinesthetic learning the guide suggests that I need to use more hands-on activities to intake information and use case studies or real life situation to learn more efficiently.

One thing is to accommodate my learning style which does not affect anyone else than me, however, as a teacher using a preferred teaching style can negatively impact students' learning. To avoid accomodating the learning needs of students with similar preferences as teacher's, teacher need to cater for all learning styles by using multiple and multimodal teaching styles. In this way teachers not only cater for learners with dominant style preferences but also for those who are multimodal learners.

To cater for all types of learners in ICT environment can be challenging due to the required level of computer competency for the student as well as the teacher. Most importantly, regardless what tool is used to accommodate the learning style(s), digital technology or traditional ways, learners need to develop skills that enable them to select, prioritise and construct knowledge.

Wordle of this reflection



Fleming, N., and Baume, D. (2006) Learning Styles Again: VARKing up the right tree!, Educational Developments, SEDA Ltd, Issue 7.4, Nov. 2006, p4-7.

Fleming, N., Vark: a guide to learning styles. (2001)
Accessed 1 June 2010. www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=kinesthetic#

Digital natives debate

How the characteristics of your students might affect how they learn and what an ideal environment might look like for them?

Due to the latest findings which confirm that ‘there is no significant differences between staff and students with regards to their technology-based activities’ (Educating the Net Generation Handbook, 2009, p19) educators at tertiary level don’t need to be concern about accommodating the expectation of techno-savvy net generation of students in contemporary settings.
Although the research shows that students coming from different educational setting and who are expected to have a very different understanding and knowledge of using technology, similarly as students from different demographic backgrounds and low socio-economic status have not demonstrated overall diversity in usage patterns (p24).
Hence the accommodating learning environment is not about accommodating the students’ different usage patterns of technology but in understanding the specific needs of students coming from diversity of backgrounds and of different age groups. For example international students might be techno-savvy but their understanding of using web based information might not be according to university standards, therefore all students regardless of belonging to net generation or not need to be educated about using the we based information by introducing them to referencing practices and critical research skills used in research.

Educating the Net Generation:A Handbook of Findings for Practice and Policy. (2009).
Retrieved June 28 2010. From www.netgen.unimelb.edu.au/downloads/handbook/Sec3Investigation.pdf

Higher Education in a Web 2.0 world

What does the changing environment of higher education in Web 2.0 world mean to you?

Some of the contemporary debates surrounding the integration of web 2.0 technologies into Higher Education include a consideration of the prior experience of higher education learners, their expectations and international practice in the use of Web 2.0 in higher education learning. This brief reflection, with its focus on the later two, will discuss some of the challenges arising form integrating Web 2.0 technologies into higher education learning from a perspective of an adult educator. The first challenge lies in aligning curriculum with the Web 2.0 technologies, and the second in prioritising web awareness to secure the graduate attribute for the global market.

Aligning curriculum with its components is challenge for any educator and it requires not only the subject’s expertise but it also may require a technological knowledge. This can be a huge challenge for academics who as well as students need to learn how to use the new technology. According to Sir David Melville, a chair of Lifelong Learning UK, when talking about students’ expectations states that tutors need to keep up where the students are in this and what they are doing. Sir Melville also stresses the benefit of ability of student knowledge of the technology in the development.
While I agree with his first point that adult educators need to keep up with the contemporary technologies used in higher education, providing the needed staff development support on institutional level not always is easily achieved. From my own experience, the organized support mainly includes seminars instead the workshops that would be in demand due to their ability of instant practice of the gained knowledge. Therefore, without provided staff development educators won’t be able to see ‘where the students are in this’ and hence they cannot design aligned curriculum.

Every tertiary institution strive to give their students the graduate attribute that are relevant to the ever changing global market. While Web 2.0 technologies are responsible for a new shift in global market, not all HE institutions which make a use of the new technologies keep up with educating students about the pitfalls of Web 2.0. According to Adrian Godfrey form Internal Business Solutions, one of the benefits of incorporating Web 2.0 technologies into higher education is the ability to attract whole population of student,
David Melville, points out the need to prioritise web awareness due to the lowered levels of critical thinking skills caused by the using Web 2.0. This is more so alarming knowing that graduate attributes are gradually introduced from a beginning of study. If the curriculum is not aligned with the emerged technology, university graduates will emerge to the global marked without having the corresponding skills and the whole point of equipping students with skills that help them to find employment is diminished. Therefore without educating students to collaborate not just in physical domain in the wide-global area of Web 2.0, not only their critical thinking skills will continue being lowered but also their chances of employment will too.

Podcast/Press Release: ‘HE in a Web 2.0 World’ report. (11 May 2009).
Retrieved June 28 2010. From http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2009/05/podcast80heinaweb20world.aspx

Hughes, A. (March 2009). Higher education in a Web 2.0 world: Report of an independent Committee of Inquiry into the impact on higher education of students’ widespread use of Web 2.0 technologies, JISC.