I’m an advocate for encouraging school districts to plan for effective instructional use of technology. This may seem rather obvious to many, but in the course of my work as an educator, I’ve seen very few institutions do this well. Specifically, I’d like to see communities hold thoughtful conversations around how schools and families can support students’ development towards becoming effective and participatory digital citizens. Schools must take a longitudinal and developmental approach to deliberately planning for the skills, literacies and habits of mind that they value in their graduates.
One tool that might serve as a springboard for these conversations is the New Media Consortium’s Horizon Report: 2010 K-12 Edition. For the past two years, I’ve served on the advisory board for this publication produced by a Texas-based think tank. As board members, we have made recommendations and shared examples of what we consider best practices in educational technology. The New Media Consortium, in turn, took our recommendations and elaborated on core technologies that schools should be investigating and adopting in three time-to-adoption horizons: one year or less, two to three years, and four to five years. In the report, the New Media Consortium also discussed at length underlying key trends and critical challenges.
I’d love for readers of this blog (and my fellow Edu 2.0 bloggers) to look over this document and share your initial thoughts and ideas in the comments here or in the Horizon Report’s comments section. Do you agree or disagree with the proposed horizons? Do any examples, trends or challenges surprise you? Do you have any thoughts on helping schools plan strategically?
This Thursday, May 6, at 7:30 PM EST, I’ll be participating in a conversation with my friends from Seedlings at Bit by Bit on EdTechTalk , a webcasting community that has served as a tremendous professional development vehicle to many educators. Join us online and participate in a backchannel chat to discuss the future of educational technology in K12 settings!