Today I presented CORE’s ten trends for 2010 to an audience of around 400 delegates at the Learning@School conference in Rotorua. The ten trends are a collection of themes and issues that have been identified by CORE staff as trends in education that we imagine will impact on the work of teachers and leaders in early childhood centres, schools, and tertiary institutions in NZ in the coming year. While our focus is on the bigger picture of education, there is a focus on trends associated with the use of ICTs in education, reflecting the fact that we are living in a world where nearly everything we do has a digital dimension.

Commoncraft have just released a 3 min intro to the basics of cloud computing which is a welcome addition to the great work they do. An evaluation copy of the video is available to view here.

Using a simple story of a growing florist business, this video explains the basics of cloud computing: how it works and why it makes sense for businesses and individuals.

• The difference between on-site computing and cloud computing
• The financial benefits of cloud computing
• What makes cloud computing secure and efficient
• How cloud computing impacts consumers

Purchase details are included on their site.

I had the privilege today of attending day one of the 6th annual JISC CETIS conference “A Brave New World?” , held at the The Lakeside, Conference Aston, Birmingham. The conference is billed as an opportunity reflect on the successes and challenges of the previous year, to look into the future, to speculate, and to consider the interventions needed to realise the information systems for teaching and learning into the future.

For me it was an opportunity to link again with several people I’ve come to know over the years through my work in the area of ICT in education, standards, interoperability etc. It was particularly good to be there for the farewell to Oleg Liber, professor of eLearning at Bolton University and the outgoing director of CETIS. I’ve met Oleg on a number of occasions in the past and have a great regard for his work, particularly in the area of educational cybernetics and his visioning the future of online learning environments.

Opening keynote was Chris Cobb, pro vice chancellor, Roehampton University. His talk was titled: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most adaptable to change…” Chris noted that this quote has previously been attributed to Charles Darwin, but was actually said by Clarence Darrow, an early 20^th Century Lawyer working out of New York! Chris used a variety of Darrow’s other quotes through his talk.

Chris’s address was a stimulating vision of the future from the perspective of a University administrator with an IT background. His main thrust was about how a SOA (Services Oriented Architecture) is going to unlock a lot of the systems we have in our world today. Chris believes believes there’ll be a move away from ERP systems – huge, monolithic products etc. and move towards a suite of interoperable services. He provided a range of examples of the use of Software as a Service (SaaS) being used to illustrate the benefits of this approach over the current ‘enterprise architecture’ approach and the bloated, monolithic systems that inhabit it. This future will see lots of smaller suppliers delivering things in a different way, resulting in a more agile, responsive approach.

Some of the examples he shared were:

• WPM – hosted automatic online payment system – now used by dozens of universities. Includes online shop feature etc – Birmingham University – using a cloud-based, software as a service approach
• The Princeton Review – shared service for post graduate admissions – also “Graduate Advantage” – online application form delivered to institutions, fast turnaround, information ported into SMS etc (a brokerage service)
• campus M – providing mobile apps (downloadable) that link into core corporate systems and allow download into mobile device – eg links into library management systems, uses GPS technology to help students find where they are on their campus, alerts to timetable system etc. Hosted environment – nothing in the institution itself. Breaking the mould of what a university has always done.
• Student Pad – hosted environment for institution to put their own private landlord information on it.
• Careers – eg Target Connect, Olivedon
• Reading list – eg TALIS Aspire – links reading list to library catalogue – marketed to TALIS and non-TALIS users. Allows users to see books from their reading list in the local library and also in local bookshops

A useful resource Chris pointed us to is an article titled Painting the Clouds by Colin Currie, published by Educause. The article provides a balanced view of the issues involved in shifting the administration of IT functions to external entities.

The 2009 Horizon Report (NZ and Australian edition) was released today at the National Broadband Network Symposium at Griffith University.

Again this year I’ve had the privilege of contributing to the development of this report – and again, I feel the value for me has been in the rigor of the thinking and exchanges that took place in deciding what things should be included and what should be left out (and why etc).

This year’s report has the usual list of technologies to watch out for, and the possible impact on education – plus it has some interesting sections on future trends and critical challenges.

The technologies to watch as decided by this year’s panel of contributors are:

One year or less to adoption

• Mobile internet devices
• private clouds

Two to three years

• Open content
• Virtual, augmented and alternate realities

Four to five years

• Location-based learning
• Smart objects and devices

This year’s report provides some excellent background on each of these technologies, and has a list of examples (with links) for you to go and explore further if there are things there you’re not familiar with, or if you simply want to learn more.

The rigor of the debate about what to include and what to leave out inevitably led to a lot of discussion around the complexity of inter-related issues and concerns that come to play with the adoption of technology and trying to anticipate its impact on learning. In this year’s report I’m particularly interested in the summary of the ‘critical challenges’ that emerged from the group’s work – as I believe these are (or should be) of more interest to the future planners in our education system, school leaders etc, than simply trying to second-guess what technologies will emerge.

Here are the challenges that are identified:

1. Practices for evaluating student work will evolve in response to the changing nature of learning and student preferences for receiving feedback.
2. Ageing learning environments do not easily allow for embracing the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), or enable the sorts of learning support systems being promoted by modern theorists.
3. There is a growing need for formal instruction in key new skills, including information literacy, visual literacy, and technological literacy.
4. There is a growing recognition that new technologies must be adopted and used as an everyday part of classroom activities, but effecting this change is difficult.

These issues are expanded on in brief in the report – and are worth exploring further in staffrooms and professional development meetings as we prepare to enter the second decade of the 21st century!

Download PDF of the report here

With all the talk about the ‘cloud’ and opportunities it creates for schools to re-think their ICT infrastructure, one of the terms that is also appearing in people’s vocabulary is Software as a Service (SaaS).

SaaS refers to computer applications that are delivered over the web as a service rather than being physically installed on school servers or individual desktops.

This morning I downloaded a free e-book from Tech&Learning titled “A guide to software as a service in education” which provides a very readable summary and introduction to what this is all about. While written for the US context, there’s plenty of useful information in here for those embarking on understanding what SaaS is all about.

For those interested in following the Cloud computing discussions, here’s a publication just released from Sun Microsystems that explains what cloud computing is all about.

This guide to cloud computing is a short, 25 page read, that…

• Defines cloud computing and its benefits
• Explains the different types of clouds (public, private, and hybrid)
• Describes the architectural service layers (e.g., Software as a Service)
• Details the underlying virtualization technologies
• Suggests next steps and actions to get started

Although it is pitched primarily for the business market, and is unashamedly a part of Sun’s marketing approach in this area, there is lots of useful information here for the newcomer to the concept of the cloud – although you’ll still need to have a reasonable grasp of basic networking jargon to fully understand it

Free PDF download available here(login required)