Recent reports are strongly suggesting that technology is increasingly tap and touch, rather than click and scroll. For example, stand in a public space – who’s tap and touching, just about everyone. Think about a learning space – click and scroll.
cc licensed flickr photo by Jeff Kubina: http://flickr.com/photos/kubina/1386968698/
This is not to say that laptops are dead, but without wifi and 3G they are gasping for breath. When we think a little harder about what kind of interaction and where the interaction will take place in the next five years, it’s hard to argue that convergence on dirt-cheap 3G, mobile tablets and mobile phones isn’t where technology is heading – and in turn we follow. I imagine, by the time my kids hit high school, they will have their own 3G connection in their backpacks, and that will be constantly wired to the metaverse.
We not only have personal networks, personal infrastructure – but increasingly personal access to anything we want for a few dollars a month.
So if you evaluate the resources and tools that you are using to ‘supply’ information and to engage in read/write communication – what are you producing it for – click and scroll or tap and touch. For example; is your blog tool accessible on a mobile device that wants to be tapped. Are you creating resources in an LMS that has a pathway to interaction in a virtual world. Are you pushing PDFs and DOCs and yet to find out what your options are to produce the same information as an eBook that you can update over time and distribute over distance.
My point is that the next five years will not be like the last, even though at times the popular messages are only marginally different. What is on your need to know list for 2011, and what are you going to add to your don’t need to know for next year? Are you already doing it?
Playable 
True. I’ve always like this TED talk by Pranav Mistry on a new UI http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology.html