Technologies and trends for 2012

Based on Gartner, Inc. Predicted top 7 strategic technologies (related to learning) and trends for 2012

1. Media Tablets – no single platform and owner provided. IT systems need to be adaptive to accommodate multiple platforms. Student and educators acquire their own tablets and bring them to school.
2. From point and click to touch, gesture and speech – services need to design new user interfaces. Students and Educators employ apps on their tablets rather than internet browsers on PCs.
3. Contextual and Social – services gathers and employs information on the user to personalise information and interaction. Online courseware personalises learning. Learning Management Systems adapt Facebook like capacities.
4. Internet of Things – services based on sensors that are connected to the internet to provide on demand and instant customer service. Students and educators use their mobile smart phones to gather information from various outlets within the school.
5. Apps – by 2014 over 70 billion mobile applications – services are moved from a centralise container of content & media to a broker of services between app stores and clients. Education publishers and service providers publish via app stores for world to access and students download apps to their tablets
6. Next Generation Analytics – movement from singular off line data analytics to in-line connected data analytics. This is a move from providing information to the environments to test simulations for predictions. Virtual Game based Learning (via organisations such as Quest Atlantis)  provide data rich environments for students to experiment in.
7. Cloud Computing – distributed data servers provide cheaper and more flexible services than private servers. Students and educators will employ cloud services for ePortfolios, collaboration and data storage.