Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year to everyone! With the dawning of the new year, I thought I would share with you my top 12 predictions for 2008:
- Online distance education will continue to grow. If you don’t believe this one, you are on the wrong blog. Speaking of which….
- The blog will finally die out. Again, for about the 5th time? How many years have the “experts” been predicting the death of the blog now? I am not predicting that this will actually happen, I am just predicting that this will be predicted and assured by many an expert, and will, once again, not happen.
- A whole slew of people will discover the terms “digital native” and “digital immigrant” and annoy me by propagating these misguided terms. They aren’t very accurate, and they ignore the concept of the “digital divide.” See the beginnings of my rant on this issue here. Which leads me to my next prediction:
- I will continue my campaign to end the use of the terms “digital native” and “digital immigrant.” So there.
- The RIAA will continue its “customer appreciation policy” by suing a lot of people that didn’t really need to be sued in addition to ignoring those that really do need to be sued. It’s time for the entertainment industry to finally leave behind it’s archaic systems. Please.
- People will continue to predict the end of the LMS/CMS/VLE. Which, again, won’t happen. Some feel that these will be replaced by social networks. Despite the fact that Moodle is based on social networking.
- People will continue to be confused over the difference between “LMS” and “CMS” and “VLE.” Can we just pick one and move on? I don’t care which one… just farkle for it and move on….
- Many will continue to question the educational validity of Second Life and say things like it is falling far short of expectations. Just like they did for this little thing called the World Wide Web back in the 90s. Wonder what became of that crazy idea….
- Many will continue to “prove” how bad the iPhone is. Because they are jealous of those that have one. I know I am.
- Everyone will continue to try and take down Google. And they will still fail. But many will try.
- Microsoft will make a ton of money. Because we are all still forced to use their products every day. Not that this is a bad thing, as long as we can still get the funny Mac commercials.
- EduGeek Journal will continue to add features that we forget to actually use. Like the podcast, Geek Chat, EdTech TV, etc. You can’t blame us for trying, right? We do all have real jobs, after all…
Matt is currently an Instructional Designer II at Orbis Education and a Part-Time Instructor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Previously he worked as a Learning Innovation Researcher with the UT Arlington LINK Research Lab. His work focuses on learning theory, Heutagogy, and learner agency. Matt holds a Ph.D. in Learning Technologies from the University of North Texas, a Master of Education in Educational Technology from UT Brownsville, and a Bachelors of Science in Education from Baylor University. His research interests include instructional design, learning pathways, sociocultural theory, heutagogy, virtual reality, and open networked learning. He has a background in instructional design and teaching at both the secondary and university levels and has been an active blogger and conference presenter. He also enjoys networking and collaborative efforts involving faculty, students, administration, and anyone involved in the education process.