Emerging Technology and what's on the Horizon

Time for some blatant solicitation of feedback here. I'm in the process of formulating a plan to present at an upcoming conference in Feb of next year. I'd like the session to really get indepth on what's up and coming. In the end I want to be able to introduce a ton of tools and companies to look out for and have people walk away with a truly enlightened experience.

I feel like at a lot of edtech conferences we get the same things rehashed over and over. How to use and utilize [insert Google product], Creating [insert expensive product with overhead] on the cheap, etc. I'm more interested in saying something along the lines of "Facebook was 2007, Twitter was 2008, let's talk about 2009, 2010, and beyond". Part of what's great about technology is how quickly things can change, but it's also a burden to those trying to keep ahead of the curve.

So that brings me to my question, which is two-part. 1. What products, companies, tools, and websites are still absolutely clueless about and would love to learn more about? 2. Are there any needs/wants that you don't feel you have a tool for your toolbox to meet them?

Tags: conferences, horizon, new, technology

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Permalink Reply by Steve O'Connor on July 20, 2008 at 12:08pm

I think the next trend will be an increase of social platform mashups through xml, rss, api, and new emerging standards like Open Social, OpenID, Open Data Definition, and RDF.

These social apps will start talking to each other allowing a users to customize their experience on whatever platform they choose weaving their own blend of data from these applications.

I don't have my mind thoroughly wrapped around this, but I am getting an emerging picture. It sounds enormously exciting!

I didn't answer question 1 exactly as I don't feel clueless. Question 2: An open source server side word processor.

I prefer to hear about open source solutions rather than Google's whatever or any expensive product panacea.

Steve

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Permalink Reply by Derwin Kitch on July 20, 2008 at 1:34pm

I agree with Steve on 2009. The keyword could very well be "Open".

I'm hoping that by 2010 we start hearing more about Ubuntu or Linux or ??? rather than Windows and Mac OS X. With all of the free online applications now, including some improving free ware applications, I hope that we're able to make a shift away from the Big 2 OSs...or at least pressuring them into lowering their prices.

This will help to drive prices down and allow for more computers in schools. Just for an example, my Microsoft Licensing at my last school hit over $10,000 USD for around 135 computers.

A good Internet connection, open source OS, good freeware and online applications would be a good model to get into. I'm not sure we're that far away.

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Permalink Reply by Rich White on July 20, 2008 at 2:31pm

With the considerable amount of work being done with opensource 3D projects like Opensim, SUN's Swonderland and Duke's Cobalt Metaverse ... virtual worlds are bound to find their way in the classroom in a big way over the next 3-5- years ..... and coupled with hardware already in the classroom like the IWB - even more powerful. Our project is called the Edusim project - demo video here if you are interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVFsxev-2sk

So if Web 2.0 was ed. tech in 2006/2007/2008 .... 2009 appears to be a transition & is looking like Web 3D will take a 3-5 year run here in 12 months or so.

But you could never lose by focusing on the mobile (Mobile Ubuntu, Moko, Android etc.) web either .... appears that the two big user trends right now are the immersive web and the mobile web.

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Permalink Reply by Rich White on July 21, 2008 at 10:16am

Here is a great little Ultra-mobile device as an example of what kids might have in their pockets in a few years --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uBQGXxCh9c .