The 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition Toolkit – for Primary/Secondary Education Discussion Facilitator’s Guide
Toolkit presented by
In partnership with
Supported by
The 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition Toolkit is presented by
The Consortium for School Networking in partnership with
the New Media Consortium
—————————— The 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition is an ongoing research project seeking to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning and creative expression within education around the globe. The Report may be downloaded at www.CoSN.org/Horizon. The 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition Toolkit, released in conjunction with the Report, is intended to be used by educators, policymakers and other stakeholders to continue the conversation around issues discussed in the Report. K-12 is a term used in the United States to indicate education provided at the primary and secondary level. While we use the term K-12, our hope is that this Toolkit will be useful around the world in education institutions.
—————————— The 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition Toolkit is made possible via a grant from HP. HP creates innovative technology solutions that benefit individuals, businesses, governments and society. HP’s Office for Global Social Innovation applies HP’s global reach, broad portfolio of products and services, and the expertise of its employees to support initiatives in education, healthcare and communities around the world. As the world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP is available at www.cosn.org.
—————————— Toolkit Author: Vicki Smith Bigham, CoSN Professional Development Director and President, Bigham Technology Solutions, Inc. Special thanks to our reviewers: Kari Arfstrom, Donna Boivin, Gordon Dahlby, Karen Greenwood Henke, Dan Honoré, Larry Johnson, Lil Kellogg, Keith Krueger, Roland Moore, Marianne Pack, Steve Sanders, Rachael Smith, Ed Zaiontz, plus the Members of CoSN’s Emerging Technologies Committee and CoSN Board of Directors.
—————————— Permission is granted under a Creative Commons Attribution + Noncommercial License to replicate, copy, distribute, and transmit this Toolkit for non-commercial purposes with attribution given to CoSN. © 2010, Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) To learn more about CoSN, visit www.cosn.org. To learn more about NMC, visit www.nmc.org. Cover photograph: “Child Looking Out a Window” by D Sharon Pruitt on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/3212680093/). Creative Commons.
Table of Contents About the 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition Toolkit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 How to Use the Presentation Template and the Discussion Facilitator’s Guide . . . . . 3 Key Trends and Critical Challenges – Questions for Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Cloud Computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 o
Questions for Discussion
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Read from the Report and Reflect
Collaborative Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 o
Questions for Discussion
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Read from the Report and Reflect
Game-Based Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 o
Questions for Discussion
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Read from the Report and Reflect
Mobiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 o
Questions for Discussion
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Read from the Report and Reflect
Augmented Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 o
Questions for Discussion
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Read from the Report and Reflect
Flexible Displays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 o
Questions for Discussion
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Read from the Report and Reflect
Continuing the Conversation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Feedback Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
The 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition Edition About the 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition Toolkit Education and technology leaders, policymakers and key stakeholders in educational institutions need practical, forward thinking information that addresses opportunities for teaching, learning and creative expression. The 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition provides a rich set of topics, examples and resources for use in considering new technologies that hold strong promise for K12 institutions. The free Report may be downloaded at www.CoSN.org/Horizon. The 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition Toolkit and has been created to help facilitate a conversation within your institution about trends in emerging technologies in K-12, based on the 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition. It enables you to involve school leaders, board/trustee members, policymakers, teacher groups, parents/community leaders and others in a conversation about the future of learning. The benefits of using the Report and Toolkit are to: o
Create or refresh your institution’s strategic technology plan to ensure that you are keeping pace with what’s possible.
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Gain the support of your local decision makers for investing in technologies that advance new ways of learning that address key challenges your institution is facing.
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“Leave no school system behind” when it comes to powerful technologies for powerful learning.
There are three components to the 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition Toolkit, all available at no cost at www.CoSN.org/Horizon. o
Presentation Template – a PowerPoint presentation file providing an overview of the research-based report and its discussion of key trends, critical challenges and of the six technologies that hold promise for K-12 education in the next one to five years. In the Notes View of the file, you will find a suggested script or set of notes you may use in group presentations. Use slide 2 to customize the presentation with the name of your district or education institution and/or logo.
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Discussion Facilitator’s Guide – this document, to be using in conjunction with the Presentation Template, providing you with guiding questions to pose to school district or education institution stakeholders to stimulate thinking about the technologies identified in the
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Report and to use for group reflection and discussion about them and other technologies of interest. o
Feedback Form – a form for you to use following presentations to groups of education stakeholders, providing a way for you to capture key learnings, questions and suggestions that can be shared back with the CoSN and the New Media Consortium Horizon Project team. You are encouraged to do so!
How to Use the Presentation Template and This Discussion Facilitator’s Guide Use the Presentation Template and suggested questions in this Guide to help maximize the impact of the Report in your school or education institution and to help your education stakeholders better understand new applications of technology to support teaching, learning and creative expression and to better plan for their successful implementation.
Strive to begin where your audience is—not where you are in your own understanding, knowledge and concerns. Select or modify questions and guide discussion, based on the priorities and needs of your local stakeholders and things they are likely to know or not know prior to the discussion. Consider what might be the hot buttons or particular areas of interest of the group to whom you are presenting. Education leaders will be driven by different needs and concerns than, for example, teachers. Build on knowledge they have, using information from the Report to help them imagine new possibilities. The Report is intended to be merely the starting place for ongoing reflection and dialogue about the technologies that are identified to have strong potential for the K-12 (primary and secondary) community. As you engage in reflection and dialogue with local stakeholders, your teams can consider which ones might present solutions to current needs, which ones warrant more study and which ones help open thinking to new possibilities for teaching, learning and creative expression. They may well identify other emerging technology trends that they think will be profoundly important for your district or education institution. Let the conversations begin! There are a variety of ways you might use the Presentation Template and questions. Some suggestions follow: o
For a high-level overview, you might use the Presentation Template in a 30-40 minute session and walk through the key findings from the Report, briefly touching on each of the six technologies. Rather than stopping for discussion at the end of the sections, pose one large question for reflection at the end of the session: What is a problem our district
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or education institution is trying to solve? Are there emerging technologies that might hold promise for providing a solution? o
If you have 45-60 minutes or up to 2 hours, you can devote more time to specific technologies and discussion of their potential applications or solutions to challenges, using some of the questions that follow. Don’t feel compelled to address all six technologies. Focus on those that have the most relevance for local needs and interests. Stop on the “Let’s discuss what this might mean for our schools….” slide following sections in the Presentation Template and pose one or more questions that follow in the next section or one or more of your own. Discuss and share ideas and identify any key takeaways from the discussion.
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Alternately and for a larger group and a time allotment of 45-60 minutes or up to 2 hours, break the group into smaller groups, assigning one technology to each subgroup (or a promising technology identified by the group). Then ask each to discuss one guiding question, e.g. “How might learning be enhanced if we implement this technology?” for the technology their subgroup was assigned. Have all report back to the entire group.
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The Presentation Template lends itself well to your conducting a series of shorter sessions, with each session focused on one technology only and reflection and discussion about its possibilities in your district or education institution.
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And using the Feedback Form in the Toolkit, we would love to hear your ideas about what worked for you!
In your discussions, it is reasonable to anticipate that some questions about challenges or obstacles to using these or other technologies may be asked. These are valid questions, especially for more near-term technologies identified in the Report. Use these questions as an opportunity to frame the discussion, e.g. contrasting challenges and opportunities; brainstorming ways to address or minimize potential obstacles; or asking what might get in the way of implementing a specific technology. As you have conversations with other education stakeholders, acknowledge that while technology holds promise for K-12 education, there can be challenges and costs to some implementations.
Key Trends and Critical Challenges – Questions for Discussion 1. Technology is increasingly impacting students’ lives. What does the current snapshot of our school or education institution look like regarding technology and its use to expand learning opportunities and empower students? What do we want the picture to look like in the next two to three years? What do we need to get there? 2. What grade or assessment would we give our school or education institution on helping st
students acquire 21 century skills necessary for their success? If improvement is
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needed, what things should we consider and do? What technologies will help us meet our goals? 3. How do our stakeholders value innovation? How do they define innovation? How are we currently addressing innovation and creativity in our curriculum and teaching practices? 4. List the range of learning opportunities we currently provide to students beyond classroom instruction. How many kinds of alternative learning opportunities do we offer? Are there any we are not offering that particularly warrant more investigation? 5. What grade would we give to our school or institution regarding teacher proficiency with digital literacy skills and techniques? Characterize whether our teachers focus on technology tools or the kinds of teaching, learning and creative expression they enable. Are there particular areas where we need to do more to support teachers in effective use of technology? 6. How can school and institution leaders benefit by the technologies described in the Report?
Cloud Computing o
Questions for Discussion 1. Are there ways in which cloud computing can positively impact our current teaching and learning environment? How? 2. How can we get started? How might we find applications to consider? And what would be included in the process of moving from our current applications to cloud computing applications? Are there any obstacles in our way?
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Read from the Report and Reflect From page 10 of the Report: “The value of cloud computing as a way to provide access to services and tools without the need to invest in additional infrastructure makes it an attractive option for many schools. Additionally, the fact that cloud applications can be accessed from a variety of devices, including not only desktop and laptop computers but many mobile devices as well, positions cloud computing as a solution that can help to fill existing gaps in school technology while making the most use of already available resources.” Is cloud computing a potential solution to a problem we are experiencing? Are there gaps in our school technology that cloud computing could help fill?
Collaborative Environments o
Questions for Discussion 1. How might collaborative environments be used by our staff to accomplish strategic goals and objectives in our institution? Are we missing any pieces that would allow us to use this technology?
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2. How could we integrate collaborative environments into teaching and learning activities to st
improve student achievement and foster use of 21 century skills?
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Read from the Report and Reflect From page 14 of the Report: “One of the most compelling attributes of large-scale collaborative environments is that they can facilitate an almost spontaneous development of communities of people who share similar interests. As the typical educatorʼs network of contacts has grown to include colleagues who might live and work across the country, or indeed anywhere on the globe, it has become common for people who are not physically located near each other to interact and share resources via online environments. Collaborative projects involving students at other schools, even in other countries, is more and more commonplace as a strategy to expose learners to a variety of perspectives.” Have our faculty and students participated in collaborative environments? What benefits were realized? Were there any challenges or learnings that can be shared? How could collaborative environments support our faculty and students and help support both professional development and student achievement?
Game-Based Learning o
Questions for Discussion 1. Could game-based learning improve student learning and achievement for some or all of our students? If so, in what ways? 2. What can we do to educate all stakeholders about the research available that points to the advantages and benefits of using game-based learning?
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Read from the Report and Reflect From page 17 of the Report: “The three most recent cohorts of children — those born in the early 1980s, the early 1990s, and the early 2000s — have grown up in a world where digital games have always been an important part of their lives. Those born since the early 1990s have never lived in a world without a global network. The most recent kids to enter schools, those born since the early 2000s, have never known a world in which that global network was not accessible from the palm of your hand. These three cohorts of kids define our school populations, and throughout their lives, they have always been immersed in the culture of digital games; it is like the air they breathe. The oldest of them are now becoming the teachers in our schools, and it will not be long before they also begin to fill out the administrative ranks. These young people continue to play games as adults: research has shown that the average age of a video gamer in the United States in 2009 was 35 years. As the UKʼs Guardian wrote in 2005, a game-player today is as likely to have children as to be a child. Games are a natural way to reach young people today, and a great deal more is now known about how to develop good games both for entertainment and for education.” What messages do these statistics have for us in relation to student engagement, teacher preparation and expectations of students and teachers alike? How do these messages encourage us about what we are doing now or prompt us to identify things to reevaluate and perhaps change?
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Mobiles o
Questions for Discussion 1. How might mobiles be used as a learning resource for our students to help bridge the gap between what is learned in the classroom and what happens in the world outside the classroom? 2. Can we incorporate best practices for use of mobiles for teaching, learning and creative expression into the work of our professional learning communities? Into professional development offerings? How can we start?
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Read from the Report and Reflect From page 23 of the Report: “The range of technologies converging in mobile devices is very broad, as is the variety of ways they can be applied…. Even so, it may well be the very simple tools that are easily integrated into classroom activities that finally tip the scale for mobiles in the classroom. For instance, some teachers are beginning to use Twitter (http://www.twitter.com) as an in-class discussion tool. Students participate by sending messages to ask and answer questions or expand on thoughts. Another simple tool, Poll Anywhere (http://www. pollanywhere.com), turns mobiles into personal response systems, enabling teachers to quiz students, assess their understanding before, during, and after a lesson, and reveal patterns of thinking in the classroom. Any mobile will work for either of these purposes; all that is required is the ability to send text (SMS) messages.” What can you imagine as a concrete learning activity that could be enhanced through use of mobiles?
Augmented Reality o
Questions for Discussion 1. Is it too early for us to begin to study the use of augmented reality? Why or why not? How can we best keep up-to-date on advances in augmented reality and especially possibilities for teaching and learning? 2. How might this technology help us more successfully support student learning goals? Describe any applications or scenarios you can imagine.
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Read from the Report and Reflect From page 27 of the Report: “An application currently in development by the EU- funded iTacitus project (http://itacitus.org/) will allow visitors to pan across a location — the Coliseum, say — and see what it looked like during an historical event, complete with cheering spectators and competing athletes. SREngine, another augmented reality application in development, will use object recognition to display information about everyday things one encounters in the real world — describing the use of different pieces of equipment in a dentistʼs office, for instance, or identifying trees on a nature walk.” What do such applications mean for student engagement, motivation and persistence? What questions do they cause you to ask?
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Flexible Displays o
Questions for Discussion 1. How might learning change if we were to have access to this technology? Think about a classroom with access to full media that can be displayed and available anywhere, not just on a single wall from a mounted display. What kind of learning environment, classroom design and flexible activities can you imagine? Are there projects that would blend well with early adoption of this technology? 2. What kinds of things can we do to stay current regarding flexible displays and their applications for teaching, learning and creative expression?
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Read from the Report and Reflect Because this is a very new technology, the relevant examples cited in the Report illustrate where this technology may take us. Read from one of the links provided in the section on pages 30-33, in the section titled “Flexible Displays in Practice”. Is this a technology that might serve to address district or education institutionsʼ goals and objectives?
Continue the Conversation o
Point your stakeholders to the resources at the end of each section in the Report. For each, there is a section on describing the specific technology in practice and a second one “For Further Reading”. Find links to articles and sites discussing case studies on scenarios and applications from schools and education institutions worldwide.
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Post your own project on the Horizon K-12 wiki at k12.wiki.nmc.org/Call+for+Examples. If have or know of a real-world example that uses one of the technologies identified in the Report in schools, especially if there is information on the Web describing the project, please post the information on the wiki.
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Continue the conversation with your local stakeholders.
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Use the Feedback Form to tell us your story and how you are using the Report and Toolkit— voice your successes, questions and suggestions for what more we can offer to help you in your efforts.
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Spread the word! Help your colleagues and peers in other districts and institutions by sharing this information.
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The 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition Toolkit FEEDBACK FORM Please tell us your story and how you are using the Report and the Toolkit. As this is the first year CoSN has provided such a resource around the Report, we appreciate comments about your experiences using the Toolkit. Provide feedback following discussions with your local or regional stakeholders in order to help us know about your successes, better understand your needs and improve our future resources. This form is available online at www.CoSN.org/Horizon or fax or email as indicated below. 1. How did you use the Toolkit (Presentation Template and Discussion Facilitator’s Guide) in your presentations and discussions? How well did the Toolkit support your conversations about Emerging Technologies in K-12?
2. How many people have been involved in reading and/or discussing the Report?
3. Were there any particular outcomes or action items that resulted from discussion?
4. What additional needs or resources would you or your stakeholders like to see in the next version of the Toolkit? 5. Additional comments:
Name: _____________________________________________________________________________ School, District or Institution: ___________________________________________________________ Location (city, state, province, country): __________________________________________________ Email: ____________________________________________________________________________ CoSN and the NMC Horizon Project sincerely thank you for your work and for your feedback. Complete the form online at www.CoSN.org/Horizon or fax it to 202-393-2011 or email it to info@cosn.org.
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