Faculty Training: What's on the Horizon? New Technology and NCS

This blog post contains notes and resources for the Thursday May 27, 2010 faculty training session about the future of technology and implications for NCS.

Based on the yearly Horizon Report, this training session is meant to give an overall view of where the educational technology field is heading.  We hope that this training session and blog post will give faculty members some new ideas on ways to use technology in the classroom, in addition to a general understanding of ways the educational field might be changing in the upcoming years. 


Powerpoint Presentation

View more presentations from National Cathedral School.

About the Horizon Report
The Horizon Report is created every year by the New Media Consortium.  There are two versions of the report, one global report that is intended more for the University setting, and one specifically created for K-12 institutions.  We have included information about both reports in order to get a greater understanding of upcoming technologies.  The reports organize key technologies according to dates of theoretical "horizons," from 1 to 2 years, 3-4 years, and 4-5 years.

• Horizon Report Wiki
• Horizon Report - Global
• Horizon Report K-12 

The Horizons

Global Edition	K-12 Edition
Near Horizon (1 Year or less)	Near Horizon (1 Year or less)
Mobile Computing	Collaborative Environments
Open Content	Cloud Computing
Second Adoption Horizon (2-3 Years)	Second Adoption Horizon (2-3 Years)
Electronic Books	Game-based Learning
Simple Augmented reality	Mobile Computing
Far-Term Horizon (4-5 Years)	Far-Term Horizon (4-5 Years)
Gesture-Based Computing	Simple Augmented Reality
Visual Data Analysis	Flexible Displays

The Near Horizon (1 Year or Less)

Mobile Computing — Integrated devices, such as Kindles, Blackberries, iPhones, and iPads allow constant access to course material. 

• Poll Everywhere — This service allows you to create online polls that can be answered via text messaging or through the web.  It allows for easy, instant polling.
• PodTrip — Download free museum tours directly onto your mobile listening device, such as an iPod.  A variety of tourist and educational podcasts are available for free online, and would be great for field trips, or for class projects.
• Evernote —This is one of my favorite services.  It is a web-based note-taking system has a variety of mobile features.  You can quickly take photo, audio, or text-based notes directly from the Evernote Smart-phone app.  These notes are automatically saved to your personal Evernote profile. 
• Mobile Apps for Education — Various smartphone apps are available for education and are worth a look.

Open Content — Free content available over the Internet can be re-purposed in the classroom.  As more and more free content becomes available, services such as FlatWorld Knowledge enable teachers to create their own digital textbooks from open content. 

• Academic Commons — Great place to search for open educational resources
• Folksemantic — Great place to search for open educational resources
• FlatWorld Knowledge — This web-based digital textbook service allows you to create textbooks compiled of sources of your own choosing, specific to your class.  
• CK12 Flexbook — Another web-based digital textbook service designed for the K-12 school, with a focus on sharing created textbooks with the community.
• Youtube EDU — A great compilation of free video resources.
• Teacher Tube —Another great compilation of free video resources.
• Flickr — A great resource for photos and even some video.  This service also allows you to search material with Creative Commons licenses. 
• Shmoop — An online community created by educators for educators with great classroom resources
• Connexions — Another online community where you can view and share educational material.  Designed to be used by both students and teachers.

K-12: Collaborative Environments — Online spaces that allow for collaboration and group-work, and advances in video-conferencing technology allows for classrooms to expand beyond the physical boundary of the school building.

• Moodle, of course! — Moodle is NCS's collaborative space. The students are all familiar with using Moodle, so the more you integrate it into your teaching practices, the easier it will be for students to access. 
• Video Conferencing — Skype is an ideal way to host quick video conferences.  Invite guest lecturers to easily chat with your classroom online. 
• Wikis — You can create a version of a wiki with Moodle, but there are also external sites on the internet that allow you to easily setup a wiki.  Wikispaces is a service that lets you easily setup wikis for free; they also give away free accounts to educators.
• Google Apps — Google services such as Gmail, and Google Docs are easy ways to collaboratively work on documents from text documents to slide shows.  Google Wave has also recently come out of beta, and many teachers are already using the service in their classroom. 
• Blogs — Consider creating your own class blog, allowing students to post articles about their research.
• For more about social media and schools, watch this video by a technology leader from the New Hampton School in New Hampshire.  It's a great example of how online tools make collaboration easy, and ultimately, essential in the classroom!

K-12:  Cloud Computing — Cloud computing refers not to a specific application, but a way of implementing technology at an institutional level.  It refers to using the processing power of multiple computers to run apps, and can ideally save an institution lots of money.  There are also a variety of free resources, open content, and online communities that are only available because of cloud computing.

• Dropbox — This is another one of my favorite Internet services.  Dropbox allows you to create a free file storage space on the web.  Instead of just accessing files online, however, you can create a special folder on your desktop so you can drag and drop files easily and everything will sync on the web. For more information, read our post: File Sharing Services for Larger Documents.
• Flickr, TeacherTube and Youtube EDU are also examples of services available because of the cloud.
• Many collaborative environments, such as Google Apps like Wave and Gmail are only possible because of cloud computing.

The Second Horizon (2-3 Years)

Electronic Books — Electronic books will eventually make textbooks obsolete.  They make it convenient to access books in one device, so no more lugging around heavy backpacks.  At this point, however, ereaders and the business model for digital content are focusing primarily on personal-use devices.  Also, ebook readers currently lack the types of tools needed for research.

Ideally, an ebook reader should have:

• Copy and Paste functionality
• Personal and collaborative note-taking and highlighting
• Search
• Text-manipulation 
• Potential for audio/video streaming and hyperlinks.

Simple Augmented Reality — The prevalence of cameras and microphones in mobile devices and laptops has allowed the once expensive and more theoretical realm of augmented reality much easier to implement.  Using the camera and screen of a mobile device or computer, you can add layers of information that can be triggered by markers, or through GPS information. 

• Augmented Reality Phone Apps — The Museum of London App allows you to view historical information about London as you walk through the city.  Here is another example of an augmented museum app.  
• Augmented Reality Tagging — New apps, such as TagWhat and Layar for smartphones are allowing users to create GPS-based tags to their environment.  These tags could than be shared with other users who then walk by the same spot.
• Augmented Reality Pop-up books — Zooburst allows users to create their own pop up books that can be viewed in augmented reality.  Simply print out an augmented reality tag, and hold it up to your webcam when prompted and the pop up book comes to life on your screen!
• Augmented Reality Games — MIT came up with an augmented reality project designed for Middle School students that combines mobile technology with game-based learning.  Another project shows an augmented reality zombie shooter game.  (This latter example may not have practical application in the K-12 classroom, but it can get you thinking of what's possible.)

K-12: Game-Based Learning — Since gaming has been so successful in military and industrial training, more and more teachers are eager to implement game-based learning in the K-12 classroom.  These games range from simple paper and pencil word searches, to Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) games, and even in the future, the type of augmented reality games mentioned previously.

• Online Flash-based games — There are increasing numbers of Flash-based web games available online with educational applications. Shepard Software's Amazing Collection of K-12 Interactives, Mithril a math-oriented MMO, and more.
• Gaming and Education Groups — A variety of educators have formed groups to discuss the merits of gaming and education. Some are, Global Kids Playing for Keeps, Quest to Learn, World of Warcraft in School

K-12: Mobile Computing — Why do you think mobile computing is only on the second adoption horizon for k-12 schools rather than on the near horizon as it is on the Global report for universities?

The Far-Term Horizon (4-5 Years)

Gesture-Based Computing — Gesture-based computing allows us interaction with computers beyond just a keyboard and mouse.  Think of the Wii, or the iPad, but even without a device, just your hands.  This type of interaction with the computer will allow for a variety of simulated reality applications, and a more intuitive way to interact.

• Youtube video - The Thrilling Potential of Sixth Sense Technology 
• Youtube Video - Project Natal for Xbox 360
• TED Talk:  John Underkoffler points to the future of UI — An inventor gives a demo of his amazing gesture-based computer interface.

Visual Analysis — New software are being developed to mashup multiple data sets and view the results in visual formats.  By interacting with data in this visual way, users can access and interpret findings much quicker than ever.  This has the potential to open up new forms of scholarship, particularly at the university level.  There are many online sources that allow for access to and creation of visualizations.

• Many Eyes — A website that allows users to share online visualizations
• Wordle — Allows users to analyze a document or website and then come up with a visual representation of the most used words.
• New Political Interfaces — This mashup allows you to view trending topics tweeted by politicians.
• Gapminder — A great resource to analyze statistical information.

K-12: Simple Augmented Reality — Why do you think simple augmented reality is only on the far-term adoption horizon for k-12 schools rather than on the second term horizon as it is on the Global report for universities?

K-12: Flexible Displays — As technology advances, it is becoming easier and cheaper to create visual displays that are flexible and thin.  These display screens have the potential to be attached to other surfaces, such as textbooks,  lab equipment, or personal school assignment books.

Results from Our Online Polls
During the training, we used Poll Everywhere to conduct a real-time poll tracking what technologies on the horizon report faculty and staff were most interested in, as well as what technologies could be easiest implemented in the classroom.  Here are the results:

Website of the Month: Readability

The Library’s web site of the month is READABILITY
http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/

Brought to you by Kathy Menz and Chip Chase who learned about it at the Computers in Libraries Conference, this site is guaranteed to remove the clutter that you have to wade through when trying to read an article. It’s simplicity will please you too. Here’s all you have to do.

1. Click on the site
2. Select the style, size and margin of the print that you wish to read.
3. Right click on the READABILITY badge and drag it to your favorites.
4. When visiting a busy web site that’s cluttered with adds and assorted bells and whistles, simply click on your booklet (bookmark) and voila! all of it disappears.

Trust me, you’ll  love the results. It’s great for showing students via a smartboard, etc. just what you want them to read

Love from you librarians

Throwback to 2005!

Though an older book, Peeps (parasite positives) is a great read, and definitely not out of touch with what makes the current teenager squirm. And, if you are heading up to NYC any time soon, you’ll definitely feel the antiquity of the city through this author’s insights. Scott Westerfield has made is seem plausible that there are creatures that have been living under the city streets, among the subway and sewer lines, for decades. There are also some human-like beings that might inhabit the dark crevices of the abandoned buildings, of which there are many in New York and across the river in NJ. But, most importantly, they are out and about among us. The main character, Cal, enjoyed a quiet life until he hit the streets of New York as a youngster entering college, ready to take on the world, but a little late night indiscretion changed everything. He also has unfortunately spread the “bug” to others, initially unknowingly, and he works to right his wrong throughout the book. Never mind, the lovely lady he meets along the way, who wants to be a part of life for eternity and tempts his self-proclaimed celibacy! The book takes a few alternate twists and turns, but overall it was worth the time to (maybe not snuggle up with) pore over and learn a little about those microscopic species we live with every day.

Power of Invention

The future. What does it really hold for us? Whether realistic and closely tied to what we know now, or so distant that the world seems to be a millennia away, many authors have taken on the topic of the future. The idea that there is imminent destruction or discovery just around the corner that will change our lives forever might stop one from reading the novels that explain it so well. However, there are others, myself included, just recently, that have found it to be incredibly enlightening with endless possibilities. Many, many years ago when I attended elementary school, girls were not the protagonists in these high adventure books, nor were these books available on the scale they are today. Growing up, I loved to watch Sci-Fi movies – somewhat of an anomaly I am told – never thinking to pick up a book of the same content.

So recently, I reached down into the depths of my being and forced myself to pick up a 442 page book, that, as it turns out, I could not put down until I had droned over the very last page! Incarceron, written by Catherine Fisher, was so exciting and plausible, that I read and read until I finished. Not just the skimming kind of reading, but the kind of reading where I wanted to envision (and was able to through the author’s acute awareness of all the right details) what Claudia, the heroine, was going to do to save her kingdom that was all a façade. Behind the scenes were the minute electronic devices that kept up the whole charade of their chosen century in which to live. Her father was cold and serene as he planned her future, but she knew there was more to find out. Finn the lost soul of the underworld introduced other creatures partially flesh and blood with wires replacing veins and skin covering metallic parts. Unknowingly for years, their lives intertwined helping them discover the world that was at her father’s fingertips, literally.

Dab of Reality

When thinking about books to share, two came to mind immediately – Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson, and You Know Where to Find Me, by Rachel Cohn, but for very different reasons. These titles deal with death (or near death experiences) and the aftermath for the friends and family left behind. The reality of thinking about life and death is clear and intense in these books. However, they address the subject in such remarkably different ways. We don’t want to be scared of the inevitable, so the introduction to such a serious topic is important. On the other hand, writing can profoundly affect many, changing their behavior and perception of the world around them. With that in mind, one should tread lightly when entering these books, but enter them, nonetheless.

Wintergirls is an intense, provocative, and horrifying look into the world of an anorexic girl whose friend, who was at one point her best-friend, takes her own life through means unbelievable to many, especially me. What makes it even more incredible, the reality is that tens of thousands of young women struggle with bulimia and anorexia every day. The novel was carefully and meticulously written about the girl who survived. Yet, her emotion is unattainable, but her personal plight to keep her life (weight) under control is so real that one wonders whether it is dangerous to read the novel for many young, impressionable minds.

Similarly in You Know Where to Find Me, we see a young girl, whose future was on the cusp, yet she makes the choice to take her own life – she battled with depression for most of her adolescent life (her biological father battled with the same affliction). The protagonist is her cousin, who struggles with her own addiction to pain and distress, but who works through the day-to-day while mulling over her incredible loss. The reader sees a lonely, uncomfortable young woman trudge through her life, but you sense the promise in the words on the page. The background is real and distressing, but important to discover. Both of these novels are uncomfortable at times; the reality is harsh and cruel. However, and most importantly, these young women are worth taking the time to understand.

Hooray for Heroines!

The characters in these novels are full of the kind of energy that one would hope to find every day. Young women, who go out, seek the world, venture into the unknown and have proved to be genuine, intricate, and strong. As a woman, with two daughters, I would only hope that the kind of excitement and intricately fascinating details portrayed in these novels will be available to each and every one of us. As females, young and old, we balance on a fine line of feeling strength and weakness, confidence and insecurity, intrigue and disdain, and these characters give us the right to cheer for the aggressive, stubborn, type-a personalities, but to also connect to the anguish they feel when their heart is broken.

In Graceling, by Kristin Cashore, the heroine chose her life and love, while helping the country fight an evil mastermind. Also, a pillar of strength was the young girl who chose to escape her fate, avoid prison because she was female, protect one sister while saving another from death, and rode off into the sunset on a dragon in Shadow of the Dragon, by Kate O’Hearn. And lastly, A Curse Dark As Gold, by Elizabeth C. Buntz, develops a young woman who fights off a dark figure looming over her tragic and simple but heroic life, as she saves the family business, her sister, and her own young child. Hooray for the REAL heroines – people who wear dresses (when they choose) while saving princesses (themselves, as well), tame dragons (no person had been able to before), fall in love (and show it openly), and be themselves (all in a day's work)! All of these young women show charisma and self-control while defeating the odds stacked against them, but they never lost their smart wit and capacity to defend themselves - traits I think we all hope for!

Recession Recreation

Realist-escapism…Is that a word or maybe a new genre? Having never loved fantasy novels growing up, I am approaching 40 these days, the new kinds of novels that grace the shelves of book-stores and libraries are extraordinary. For me, the line continues to blur between historical fiction and fantasy. Though none of these novels can be categorized as historical fiction, it seems hard to believe that these places and times do not actually exist. As the reader, you are whisked away into a world that exports emotions, possibilities, and very often real triumphs. You believe that there will be a day you will fall upon the crevice in the rock that will transport you to the world of monsters that are too beautiful to look at, as in Fire, by Kristin Cashore. When you step on the recently smothered fire from the faeries retreating into the forest as the dawn breaks, and extraordinary musicians are in danger of being stolen away for their talent in Ballad, by Maggie Stiefvater, you believe their fear is real. Lastly, huntresses lead the pack in a place far, far away, while dark figures looming in the forest masquerade as humans in the neighboring towns in Ash, by Malinda Lo.