Somewhere over the rainbow - the shifting perspectives of the Horizon Report

"Rainbow" (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by dominique cappronnier

The full version of this year's Horizon Report is now available, published by Educause who rescued the publication from the threat of extinction last year. Each year a global panel of experts nominate trends in educational technology that will make an impact in the short, medium and long term and also identify key challenges facing higher education in the coming years. The report is often criticised since the same technologies seem to move backwards and forwards on the horizon and sometimes even disappear for a while before returning. This year's report is no exception with mobile learning predicted to go mainstream in the next couple of years, having been a feature of several reports in the past. Many other technology trends such as learning analytics, gaming, virtual reality and blended learning have been on the horizon for quite a while but somehow never really make the transition to mainstream practice.

Probably the most interesting feature of this year's report is a section, Fail or scale? (pages 33-39), that examines three trends that have featured in previous reports but have still not become an integral part of higher education practice: adaptive learning, virtual and augmented reality and gaming/gamification. Three experts present their analysis of why these phenomena haven't made the transition and all three analyses have some common ground. All of them have very sound cases for adoption but they all demand major changes to existing structures and models. Bryan Alexander's analysis of gaming in education makes a comment that could well be applied to many other technology trends featured in the Horizon Report over the years:

A new technology—especially one that requires significant research and training—needs to be able to work across the curriculum and in sufficient numbers to merit institutional investment. Faculty members can carry such a technology forward to some extent, but only if they are knowledgeable and engaged with it and if they can sufficiently support the hardware or software. Otherwise the technology will only appear at best in a small segment of a college or university.

Some technology applications have made the transition and become essential elements of the university's operations, such as the learning management system, lecture capture and anti-plagiarism software. It could be claimed that the reason that these applications have succeeded is that they have not challenged the traditional structures and models of higher education, they have simply added a digital version of what we do already (ie. lecture, work in defined classes and classrooms). The potential of many other technologies that so often feature in Horizon reports can only be realised by making radical changes to the way we teach and learn. As a result, they often get bogged down by all the other changes that have to take place before they can be fully implemented. Many new technologies require significant investment to realise their full potential, as outlined by Nicole Weber in her analysis of adaptive learning technologies:

With so much potential, why has adaptive learning not scaled quickly? One of the largest challenges is the investment (e.g., time, money, resources, and vision) needed to implement and scale these courseware products.

In the case of virtual and augmented reality (mixed reality), Kevin Ashford-Rowe highlights the barriers of the hardware required to implement the solutions successfully. In short, the inconvenience and expense of the VR visors make it impractical as a mainstream technology:

In his February 2018 article “3 Reasons Augmented Reality Hasn’t Achieved Widespread Adoption,” AJ Agrawal, argues that—in this order—it is due to a combination of ergonomics, basic utility, and corrective lenses. In short, no matter the benefits, “no one wants to wear a pair of goggles on their head during daily routine” (ergonomics); “even the most mind-blowing AR glasses won’t matter until they look ‘normal’ enough for everyday wear” (basic utility); and, given that three-quarters of the US population need corrective lenses, “it goes without saying that smart glasses need this option [corrective lenses].” He also points out an important distinction that should be made between VR and AR—AR possesses a natural advantage in that the information being displayed is integrated with what is in front of the user.

My conclusion here is that maybe we should not simply criticise reports like Horizon for changing their predictions and timescales but instead look at why it is so hard to change traditional educational structures. Tradition is the hardest barrier to break and it takes many years for any innovation to break through. The idea that we can see the impact of technological innovation in terms of such a short time scale as the next five years is probably flawed.

Read more on this in an article in Campus Technology, 3 Ed Tech Trends Stuck on the Horizon (and Why).

Pokemon and source criticism

"FL-Trail Center" (CC BY 2.0) by vastateparksstaff

It's maybe a sign of the times that in a summer of conflict, terrorist attacks and political turmoil, millions of people are running around searching for virtual cartoon characters. I admit I find it hard to relate to Pokemon Go, just as the first wave of Pokemon in the mid-nineties escaped me, but one positive result of the trend is that it will be much easier to talk about augmented reality from now on. AR is already being used in education, simulation, tourism and gaming but Pokemon will push it into the mainstream and I expect to see a boom in the field in the coming year.

However maybe we can see Pokemon Go as more than just a fun game but a useful metaphor for the times we live in. We no longer see the world as it is (maybe we never did) but our view of reality is augmented or filtered through different lenses; media channels, politicians, populists, advertising etc. Every day we are met by competing and often wildly differing narratives where demons, trolls, half-truths and fantasy appear before us. It's all too easy to mix reality with these superimposed virtual figures. We need to raise our awareness that the information we get is augmented by the channel that conveys it. Educators need to focus more than ever on source criticism and the ability to assess the credibility of information. Indeed in my view this is the most important skill in all levels of education today. We need to be able to distinguish between the real world and the Pokemon figures that appear to inhabit it.

Augmented reality makes print go 3D

Too much discussion of technology is built on the conflict between old and new as if the two cannot coexist. Digital technology is seen as sweeping away traditional media; analogue versus digital, books versus e-books, learning versus e-learning etc. This polarization creates the view that digital and analogue are mutually exclusive. Studying online does not rule out meeting face-to-face but it provides a way to study and communicate when face-to-face is not feasible. Studies indicate that people who are active in social media are more likely to also have very active social lives offline. The one does not rule out the other and in many cases the digital can enhance the analogue instead of replacing it.

A good example of this is Augmented Reality which is increasingly used to enhance print media in increasingly more inventive applications. Take a look for example at this new service called Blippar. Using a smartphone you can see 3D extensions to magazine pages that let you access more information, see videos or see animations. It is also used to make packaging come alive, by viewing your breakfast cerial packet through a smartphone and seeing cartoon characters come to life or accessing more information about the product. Have a look on the Blippar site for more film examples.

AR - through the looking glass

A few years ago you saw people in town walking or standing with a mobile phone at their ear, talking. Today most people hold their mobiles in front of them texting, checking e-mail or watching a video clip. But in the near future we'll be holding the mobiles in front of our eyes and looking at the world through the eye of the mobile. At least that's what the developers of Augmented Reality (AR) are hoping. By watching the world through our mobiles we get an overlay that provides information about what we see: menus from the restaurants we pass, information on tourist attractions, what rooms are available at the hotels we pass etc.

An article on the site PSFK, Augmented reality: fad or the future? includes the following videoshowcasing potential uses for augmented reality. I've shown several AR videos on this blog in the past and the number of possible applications keeps growing. This article wonders if we really will wander around looking at everything through the lense of our mobile devices but it's no stranger than today's mobile habits. The question is whether we will dispense with the small talk at social gatherings and instead check everyone's details first via AR. Before you've even said hello you will have been through the person's LinkedIn and Facebook profiles and checked out their online CV. Standard chat-up lines like "Haven't I met you somewhere before?" just won't work any more.

Altered images

Augmented reality has still not broken through as an everyday technology but it's developing fast and I suspect that in the not too distant future it'll suddenly be everywhere. Here's the latest in a line of videos showing new applications for augmented reality and each time it seems to be moving closer to finding that soft spot for mass adoption.

I like the interaction between mobile and printed media giving newspapers, books, ads, billboards, signs and so on digital content and creating a bridge between the two media. Too often we see dramatic headlines that the digital world will make all printed media obsolete in the very near future. This causes understandable reactions of panic or denial ("over my dead body") and unnecessary conflict.

A lot of discussion about digitalisation is rather too radical; that new technology will sweep away all traces of the old methods. This often just leads to traditionalists digging in even deeper. Let's look at all these amazing new opportunities and see what we can do with them to make learning even more exciting. Some old ideas will fade away, some will be retained and others will be remodelled. Evolution is the name of the gamer.

Anyway have a look at this video from Junaio.

Augmented reality gets even realer

I've been following the development of augmented reality (AR) with interest over the past couple of years. It's still far from mainstream but a breakthrough could come soon, especially since so many people now own devices that can cope with it. By viewing the world through your smartphone you see extra layers on top of reality. It can be links to more information on a restaurant, historical building, a house for sale and so on. You could see monsters on your street that you have to fight or see instructions on how to work some equipment in front of you.

If you aren't sure of what effects AR is going to have in the future have a look at this amazing film trailer. It's a German film where you play one of the roles and you see the action in AR through your mobile. You have to actually visit the action scenes and your reactions to each situation determine how the film continues. The potential for educational simulations are enormous; for training emergency situations, safety routines, military training etc. Here you can practice situations that simply cannot be practiced in any other way.



For some more thoughts on why all this is relevant to education read a blog post by Vicki Davis, A lesson in simple augmented reality.

Augmented reality meets print

Print media is under some heavy fire at the moment with devices like the iPad hoping to push the business over to digital format. Certainly digital versions of popular magazines on a high definition screen will open up many exciting new avenues but will there still be room for the print editions? The following video presents an unlikely link-up between the hi-tech world of augmented reality and a print magazine.

German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin has teamed up with augmented reality developers Metaio to produce the first print magazine that can be viewed through an AR application in a smartphone. The whole concept is still under development and the features shown in the video are merely a taste of what will be possible in the near future. Now, when does all this hit the education sector?



Soon after writing this I found another magazine also using AR this month, Time Out New York. See article Time Out New York premiers mobile augmented reality cover.