http://blog.case.edu/lev.gonick/2008/12/14/top_10_it_trends_for_higher_education_in_2009
I'm a fan of predictions, scenarios and the future. Gonick is a smart guy who continues to do interesting things at Case.
These trends seem pretty mainstream and defensible to me. I think Lev is right on - although I think he misses some things. Trends that are not on the list that I think deserve a place include the rapid move away from enterprise apps towards consumer cloud based apps run through the browser (Exchange to GMAIL, Office to Google Docs), the rise of the netbook, the increasing irrelevance of Microsoft to ed. tech, and the rapid move to mobilized/portable content. He also misses the growing importance of lecture capture, and the related (I think) shift to faculty and student produced screencasting and sharing.
Here is his list - stripped of his narrative and comments (definitely worth going to the blog and reading) - with my analysis in italics:
1. To The Cloud and Beyond. agreed
2. The Consumer Reigns Supreme. agreed
3. Streaming Media for Education Goes Mainstream. definitely
4. SecondLife Goes Back to School. I'm still a skeptic - particularly as the innovation will not be at 3d and immersive but simpler content and interaction that can work on mobile devices
5. e-Book Readers Disrupt the College Text Book Marketplace. true - and about time.
6. The IT Help Desk Becomes An Enterprise Service Desk . maybe, hopefully
7. Course Management Systems are Dead! Long Live Course Management Systems! I agree that open source platforms are serious challenge - and that the best route for Blackboard will to be purchased by a larger player that can integrate the CMS into a larger (cloud) based stack
8. ERP? What's That? ok
9. In God We Trust -- Everyone Else Bring Data. Decision support software and data warehousing tools. I've been hearing this prediction for years now - it is hard to argue with - but I still don't see data driven analysis as the norm in higher ed....even if we all agree this is the way to go
10. Smile, Interactive High Definition Video Conferencing moves from the Board Room to the Research Lab and the Lecture Hall. Okay as far as it goes...but I think the bigger story will be low-quality video done through webcams and then smart-phone cameras....
11. The campus data center goes under the scope definitely
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