Looking Back 2009 - Looking Forward 2010...

So here we are - the end of one year and the beginning of another - time to look back and look forward - the adventures and opportunities of the year past and the adventures and opportunities of the year ahead...

2009 was a full and busy year - I began a regular gym routine which has morphed into a six-day a week routine - I'm in much better shape now than I was a year ago and fully expect to be in even better shape by the end of 2010. My virtual cross Canada trek from Halifax to Vancouver has me somewhere around Winnipeg right now (more posts to follow on that) - I hope to be in Vancouver by October or November 2010. The gym and fitness has become part of my life - a big lifestyle change for me. In 2010 I plan on running (well slogging - slow jogging) the Bluenose 5K - I've walked it the last two years. Also plan on playing more golf in 2010 than I did in 2009, but that will be u to the Golf Gods...

On the technology front 2009 was the year where Twitter became my most used Web 2.0 tool and Facebook declined in use - in fact if it were not for the ability of TweetDeck to simultaneously post to Twitter and Facebook, I might never use Facebook - although it is still my preferred tool for tracking Birthdays etc. As it is I use Greasemonkey scripts to customize facebook and get rid of a lot of the superfluous stuff that seems to spring up all over Facebook these days.

I also blogged less in 2009 but plan on doing more in 2010 - Twitter took a lot of what I wanted to say, but some days I just need more than 140 characters. Twitter changed the way we look at and get news - look at the uprisings in Iran and the Haiti earthquake - Twitter got the news out to the world...

I'm still looking for that killer Web 2.0 app that will tie all these social media sites together - if you create it, you will make a fortune. I thnk in 2010 the desktop and operating sytems will become less relevant and the move to the cloud will continue. I wonder what impact that Google's Chrome OS will have? Google's influence will continue t0 grow - it will be a noun, verb, adjective, and who knows maybe even a preposition bythe end of 2010.

Devices will continue to shrink - more and more folks will use smartphones an netbooks to connect - I can't wait to see what Apple does with their tablet (iSlate, iTablet or who knows the Newton II?).

All in all 2009 was a great year and I'm looking forward to what 2010 brings. Hmmm...

Looking Back, Looking Forward 2008...

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:

1. 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
2. Second Life will continue to grow and will be bought by one of the big players in the Internet (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft...)
3. Open Source will continue to take away from proprietary software - Google Docs and similar online collaborative "suites" will increase in use and popularity
4. Web 2.0 apps will become mainstream as businesses and educational institutions start to use them regularly
5. 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"
6. 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
7. 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...
8. 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.
9. The iPhone will come to Canada - PLEASE!!!! The iPhone is the future of learning...
   
10. 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...

It looks like Kreskin's job is safe - some of these things came to pass and some didn't, and some sort of happened. So what will be the big events of 2009?

1. 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.
2. Blended learning will continue to grow as more and more learners and more and more academic institutions look for more flexible learning opportunities
3. 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
4. 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...
5. 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...
6. 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...
7. Open source and cloud computing is the future and the future will continue to develop in 2009.
8. 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...

Have a great year everyone! It's goingto be interesting. Hmmm...

(Photo - Janus Coin by Marco Prins)