Well, tonight is the end of one year and the start of another. Time to look back at the year that was and look forward to the year that will be.Here are the things that I said back on December 31st 2007 would be the big things of 2008:
- Blended learning and blended learning opportunities will increase - in the end (maybe not the end of 2008 but soon after), more learners will be taking a blended approach to learning than a traditional classroom only model
- Second Life will continue to grow and will be bought by one of the big players in the Internet (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft...)
- Open Source will continue to take away from proprietary software - Google Docs and similar online collaborative "suites" will increase in use and popularity
- Web 2.0 apps will become mainstream as businesses and educational institutions start to use them regularly
- E-Mails use will decline in favour of IM, Twitter, Facebook and other more immediate forms of communication - EMail will be for "communicating with old folks"
- Facebook will still be big, but may decline as people become tired of all of the "applications" cluttering up the interface. Look to Orkut and other social networking sites to grow among those wanting to be social without all of the "other stuff". Ning will grow in the creation and use of personal and customized social networking sites
- I hope that someone creates the social networking equivalent of Meebo allowing me to use one interface for all of the social networking sites that I belong to - Facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo, Ning...
- Microsoft Windows Vista will continue to struggle, good news for Apple and Linux distros like Ubuntu. More and more educational institutions will look at multi-boot Apple computers as the solution to their IT infrastructure needs.
- The iPhone will come to Canada - PLEASE!!!! The iPhone is the future of learning...
- I'll continue to blog in 2008, focussing on education and other things that make me go hmmm... including my new mantra of ECMO - Engagement, Collaboration, Mobility, and Openness - it's where education has to go...
- The downturn in the global economy will impact all sectors including education - enrollments may go uo because learners want to stay in school and avoid a down-turned job market, or enrollments may decline because no one can afford to come to school. Hmmm... I'm betting on the first choice.
- Blended learning will continue to grow as more and more learners and more and more academic institutions look for more flexible learning opportunities
- The iPhone is in Canada and it along with other smartphones from RIM and Google will change the way many learners get their information, and even the way they learn
- Web 2.0 tools will mature - the space will mature and shrink somewhta with many Web 2.0 tools disappearing or being assimilated (see Pownce as an example). More and more people will begin the move to cloud computing. That will have huge implications ofr educators. Hmmm...
- I'm still hoping that someone will create the social networking equivalent of Meebo allowing me to use one interface for all of the social networking sites that I belong to - Facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo, Ning...
- Educators will continue to struggle to understand millennial learners and adpat learning environments to meet them where they are while at the same time giving them the skills they will need to be successful in a world trhat won't be quite as flexible in accomodating them. Millennials may change the world, but they won't do it in 2009...
- Open source and cloud computing is the future and the future will continue to develop in 2009.
- I'll still continue to blog in 2009, still focussing on education and other things that make me go hmmm... including my not so new mantra of ECMO - Engagement, Collaboration, Mobility, and Openness, modified with its corollary "Learning Is a Team Sport" - it's where education has to go...
(Photo - Janus Coin by Marco Prins)
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