The report, which is produced in partnership with the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative and includes research and input from 56 education experts, was designed to give campus leaders and practitioners a valuable guide for strategic technology planning. It identified six key trends, six significant challenges and six important developments in educational technology across three adoption horizons over the next one to five years.
Overall, the experts agreed on two long-term trends: advancing learning environments that are flexible and drive innovation, as well as increasing the collaboration that takes place between higher education institutions.
Among the challenges identified by the report are creating physical learning spaces that enable more student-centered approaches and more creation-oriented learning.
“There’s better recognition today among higher education leaders that the infrastructure of the organization needs to be set up in a way that’s agile and flexible, so that the university can adapt to ever-evolving technology landscapes and future workplace needs,” said Samantha Becker, director of the NMC Horizon Project. “Doing that facilitates an environment where there's more entrepreneurial thinking and work from faculty and students.”
Becker said the report unveiled a trend where universities, and even some K-12 schools, are rearranging physical learning spaces to be more oriented toward group work, intimate discussions and hands-on learning.
“Traditional brick and mortar institutions are built very similarly with a podium at the front and lecture hall-style seating,” said Becker. “That’s not necessarily conducive to active, immersive, hands-on learning.”
The report found that makerspaces -- physical spaces where students can feel free to tinker, experiment and play -- are becoming more relevant in higher education. For example, Florida Polytechnic University recently built the Rapid Application Development makerspace, a state-of-the art facility that is equipped with 55 MakerBot 3D printers and scanners, among other technologies.
Another challenge identified by the expert panel was improving digital literacy, though the report points out that much progress is being made in this area. For example, governing bodies are developing guidelines for digital literacy to help students learn skills that will be critical to their success in the workplace. The Massachusetts Department of Education, for instance, is currently designing “Digital Literacy and Computer Science Standards” with an expert panel that consists of leaders in both K-12 and higher education.
Meanwhile, researchers at Kennesaw State University recently published the paper Unraveling the Digital Literacy Paradox: How Higher Education Fails at the Fourth Literacy, which found that current definitions of digital literacy only account for the gaining of new knowledge, skills and attitudes, but do not include the deeper components of intention, reflection and generativity.
“The addition of aptitude and creativity to the definition emphasizes that digital literacy is an iterative process that involves students learning about, interacting with, and then demonstrating or sharing their new knowledge,” the report points out.
“There is starting to be a more universally accepted realization that digital literacy isn’t just about knowing how to use a technology,” said Becker. “It’s about being able to use these technologies to do something, to stimulate critical thinking. We’re starting to see more programs that emphasize students creating something, via a product or service that can transform the world they live in, as opposed to rote learning where students are taking tests to showcase what they’ve learned."
The report also found a continuing trend toward BYOD in colleges.
“It’s really about the freedom of choice for students to use devices and technologies that they’re already comfortable with,” said Becker. “Smartphones, for example, historically could have been seen as distraction tools, but maybe that’s because students didn’t know how to use them for learning. Integrating more mobile technology in higher education will show students how they can use those technologies for things other than social media or texting. The onus is on universities to build IT infrastructures that are device-agnostic or can support any number of devices that students might choose to bring onto campus.”
The report also stresses that faculty must not be left behind in the digital learning evolution, and that programs with one-size-fits-all training approaches that assume all faculty are at the same level of digital literacy pose a higher risk of failure.
“University leaders must first comprehend the wide spectrum of faculty IT needs before designing professional development opportunities,” states the report. “A data-driven approach that depicts faculty use of the university’s technology can reveal patterns of their literacy and help leaders to identify areas for improvement.”
