The outer rim of EdTech for 2010 — good and bad for (Australian) Education
Blogs, wikis, podcasts – the staple diet of the ed-tech revolution will further be considered bubblegum edu-punk as many of the early advocates move into new areas and newcomers leap frog much of the under-pinning principles that were foundational in 2005 – 2009
Consulting Cartels will continue to be the vocal and visible agents of change within small networks – sharing quality ideas and information, but remaining price-distant from ordinary teachers in public education. Scale and reach will remain their biggest challenge — and a potential risk exists that they may be widening the equity gap not closing it. Open Education and Open Professional Development will remain flaky and fragile. If there is an educational-community, I think that this will be it’s biggest challenge. Free vs Fee Professional Development.
DER/DET notebooks will show little evidential ‘performance benefits’ for student-learning outcomes. The lack of data will see reports continue to focus on infrastructure and support benefits in hardware/software maturation. Pedagogical shift in curriculum demands will remain static, despite the National Curriculum and Board of Studies rhetoric of 2009. Implementation and quality assurance will be on a scale too large to deal with for some time — radical changes to the HSC will continue to be too hot for politicians to tackle. We’ll see a few more chairs moved, and a few more pilots — and a new Minister for Education.
The government will introduce a brain-missing filter and focus on the desire for Rudd to be remembered as the man who ‘built the digital Australia’. Deals will be done to assure that outcome in the same way Howard traded gambling for GST a decade before. We won’t care however, as we will continue to spend twice as much time and money on social games than any other passive content such as the movies or television services. Star Wars will become the number 2 MMO, but will suffer service issues and lag — nothing to worry Blizzard — who will demonstrate that you can destroy an entire profitable empire completely and rebuild a better one because of community — a lesson that will be missed by business and finance who truly believe Sherlock Homes was a good movie and handing more money to morons that squander it is not nation-killing.
Netbooks will drop off the face of the earth as soon as Apple release the ‘big touch’. Laptops will also suffer as Apple dives the price of iPhones to back-fill their market position. The technorati will buy the big-itouch and a Android phone, just to be uber cool of course.
ePaper and eBook readers will become normal consumer items. No one really wanted a mini-laptop in the first place. 3G will become a normal – low cost option – on pre-paid phones … thus allowing students to access anything, making the filter totally pointless and anonymous. Old media will continue to thrash around and talk about porn, perverts, drugs, mafia and other nasties that will continue to rip their micro-world apart – puppy dogging Twitter and leaching Mashable content to regurge to armchair-zombie-masses, unable to get their head around Google Wave which will quietly dissipate with insufficient fanbois to keep it surging.
Reaction Grid will become the defacto host for Educational Second Life. Linden will all but abandon Teen Second Life … and AU public education will still ignore everything ‘virtual’ and ‘game based’.
Private education will start to use private-grids in more serious and connected ways – further increasing the digital divide.
Augmented reality toys will become integral to console based gaming. Away from basic eye-toys, serious games and strategy will use augmented reality onto the table top, using transmedia strategies in their product offerings. Reaction Grid will respond to these changes first.
The number of teachers using technology in new and resonant ways in school will stagnate — and more will leave public to work in private because of the ‘virtual glass ceiling’. Many schools will find it frustratingly hard to integrate technology — due to policy — that keeps outsiders – outside. Large systems will not re-assess their HR policy and continue to hire people who are unable to lead them anywhere other than in circles — believing qualification and time-served are more important than ePortfolios, digital-authority and reputation.
I hope I’m wrong about some of these.
Playable 