Description
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Education Society (IEEE) to inform educational leaders about significant developments in technologies supporting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education.
The Technology Outlook for STEM+ Education 2012-2017
An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis
is a collaboration between
The NEW MEDIA CONSORTIUM
and
The Centro Superior para la Enseñanza Virtual (CSEV),
Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Control
at The Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), and
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Education Society (IEEE)
The project was made possible by a grant from the Centro Superior para la Enseñanza Virtual
(CSEV), whose generous support is very much appreciated.
© 2012, The New Media Consortium.
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Permission is granted under a Creative Commons Attribution License to replicate, copy, distribute, transmit,
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Citation
Johnson, L., Adams, S., Cummins, M., and Estrada, V. (2012). Technology Outlook for STEM+ Education 2012-
2017: An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.
ISBN 978-0-9846601-8-6
An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis
Technology Outlook for STEM+ Education 2012-2017
An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis
Executive Summary .................................................................................................................................................................................... 1
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less
! Cloud Computing .............................................................................................................................................. 5
! Collaborative Environments ......................................................................................................................... 6
! Mobile Apps........................................................................................................................................................... 7
! Social Networking ............................................................................................................................................. 8
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years
! Augmented Reality ........................................................................................................................................... 9
! Learning Analytics .......................................................................................................................................... 10
! Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) .......................................................................................... 11
! Personal Learning Environments ............................................................................................................ 12
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years
! Collective Intelligence .................................................................................................................................. 13
! The Internet of Things .................................................................................................................................. 14
! Natural User Interfaces (NUIs) .................................................................................................................. 15
! Wearable Technology ........................................................................................................................ 16
Top Ten Trends .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 17
Top Ten Challenges ................................................................................................................................................................................. 19
Methodology .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 21
2012 Horizon Project STEM+ Advisory Board ..................................................................................................... 23
Executive Summary
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 1
Executive Summary
The Technology Outlook for STEM+ Education 2012-2017 reflects a collaborative effort between the
New Media Consortium (NMC), the Centro Superior para la Enseñanza Virtual (CSEV),
Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Control at the Universidad Nacional de
Educación a Distancia (UNED), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Education
Society (IEEE) to inform educational leaders about significant developments in technologies
supporting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. The addition of the “+”
in the acronym, as used here, incorporates communication and digital media technologies in the
traditional four areas of study.
The research underpinning the report makes use of the NMC’s Delphi-based process for bringing
groups of experts to a consensus viewpoint, in this case around the impact of emerging
technologies on teaching, learning, or research in STEM+ education over the next five years. The
same process underlies the well-known NMC Horizon Report series, which is the most visible
product of an on-going research effort begun a decade ago to systematically identify and describe
emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on education around the globe.
The Technology Outlook for STEM+ Education 2012-2017 was produced to explore emerging
technologies and forecast their potential impact expressly in a STEM+ context. In the effort that
ran from July through September 2012, the carefully selected group of 46 experts who
contributed to this report considered hundreds of relevant articles, news, blog posts, research, and
project examples as part of the preparation that ultimately pinpointed the most notable emerging
technology topics, trends, and challenges for STEM+ education over the next five years.
That group of experts, known as the 2012 Horizon Project STEM+ Advisory Board, is comprised of
notably knowledgeable individuals, all highly regarded in their fields. Collectively the advisory
board represents a range of diverse perspectives across the STEM+ learning sector. The project has
been conducted under an open data philosophy, and all the interim projects, secondary research,
discussions, and ranking instrumentation can be viewed at stem.wiki.nmc.org. The precise
research methodology employed in producing the report is detailed in a special section found at
the end of this report.
The 12 “technologies to watch” presented in the body of this report reflect our experts’ opinions as
to which of the nearly 60 technologies considered will be most important to STEM+ education
over the five years following the publication of the report. As the table below illustrates, the
choices of our STEM+ experts overlap in interesting ways with those who contributed to the
globally focused NMC Horizon Report > 2012 Higher Education Edition and the NMC Horizon Report >
2012 K-12 Edition. All three of these projects’ advisory boards — a group of 139 acknowledged
experts — agree that cloud computing and mobile apps will likely tip into mainstream use within
the next year, a trend that spans all of education across much of the world. All three advisory
boards saw learning analytics as an emerging science that would be making its way into schools
and universities in the mid-term horizon. All also agreed that natural user interfaces are redefining
how we think about and use our devices, with even the timeframe agreed upon by these three
distinct groups of experts.
There are many interesting overlaps between the opinions of our STEM+ experts and the K-12
experts whose contributions were published in June 2012. Cloud computing, collaborative
environments, and mobile apps were all on the near-term horizon for both reports; likewise,
learning analytics and personal learning environments on the mid-term horizon; and natural user
interfaces on the far-term horizon. The 93 experts from both the STEM+ and the Global Higher
Education advisory boards were of like mind that the Internet of Things is four to five years away.
Executive Summary
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 2
Comparison of “Short List” Topics Across Three NMC Horizon Research Projects
Technology Outlook for
STEM+ Education 2012-2017
NMC Horizon Report
2012 Higher Education Edition
NMC Horizon Report
2012 K-12 Edition
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less
Cloud Computing Cloud Computing Cloud Computing
Collaborative Environments Mobile Apps Collaborative Environments
Mobile Apps Social Reading Mobiles and Apps
Social Networking Tablet Computing Tablet Computing
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years
Augmented Reality Adaptive Learning Environments Digital Identity
Learning Analytics Augmented Reality Game-Based Learning
Massively Open Online Courses Game-Based Learning Learning Analytics
Personal Learning Environments Learning Analytics Personal Learning Environments
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years
Collective Intelligence Digital Identity Augmented Reality
Internet of Things Natural User Interfaces Natural User Interfaces
Natural User Interfaces Haptic Interfaces Semantic Applications
Wearable Technology Internet of Things Assessment of 21
st
Century Skills
At the same time, there were a number of distinct choices made by the STEM+ advisory board:
collective intelligence, massively open online courses, social networking, and wearable technology
were all considered by recent panels, but did not rise to the top of those rankings as they did here.
Wearable technology has been submitted as a potential topic for several of the most recent
rounds of Horizon Project research, but this is the first time it has risen to the list of finalists, and is
a brand new topic this year that should be interesting to watch as it evolves.
A growing number of key universities are looking to MOOCs as a growth medium for courses in
computer science, electrical engineering, physics, and more to broader audiences. Many STEM-
focused institutions are looking to open — often free — online universities to supplement the
current courses at brick-and-mortar institutions.
Top Ranked Trends Across Three NMC Horizon Research Projects
Technology Outlook for
STEM+ Education 2012-2017
NMC Horizon Report
2012 Higher Education Edition
NMC Horizon Report
2012 K-12 Edition
Teaching paradigms across all
sectors are shifting to include
online learning, hybrid learning
and collaborative models.
People expect to be able to work,
learn, and study whenever and
wherever they want.
Paradigms in K-12 teaching are
shifting to include online
learning, hybrid learning and
collaborative models.
Massively Open Online Courses
(MOOCs) are proliferating in STEM
areas.
The technologies we use are
increasingly cloud-based, and our
notions of IT support are
decentralized.
The abundance of resources and
relationships made easily
accessible via the Internet is
increasingly challenging us to
revisit our roles as educators.
The abundance of resources and
relationships made easily
accessible via the Internet is
increasingly challenging us to
revisit our roles as educators.
The world of work is increasingly
collaborative, driving changes in
the way student projects are
structured.
As the cost of technology drops
and school districts revise and
open up their access policies, it is
becoming increasingly common
for students to bring their own
mobile devices.
Just as the nuances of the technologies and their associated adoption horizons featured in this
report are specific to STEM+ education, even if there are commonalities with other reports, the
Executive Summary
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 3
trends and challenges selected by the STEM+ advisory board distinctly reflect the current drivers
and obstacles facing STEM+ education in the coming five years. For example, the advisory board
agreed that the interest in massively open online courses is a trend that many world-class
universities are responding to by designing open programming courses, engineering courses, and
more. The experts spent a fair amount of time researching and discussing relevant trends and
challenges in the context of STEM+ teaching and learning. A full discussion of trends and
challenges identified by the advisory board begins on page 17; the top three from those longer
lists are included in the tables in this section.
The 46 STEM+ experts saw doors opening in STEM fields to more — and more diverse — online
learning opportunities, and more use of online collaboration tools. Additionally there is a growing
recognition within these disciplines that the quality of the course’s content should be
independent of the devices used to access that content.
Horizon Project advisory boards in general have agreed that trends like these and the full list on
page 17 are clear drivers of technology adoption; the STEM+ group especially saw such a linkage.
At the same time, these panels of experts also agree that technology adoption can be and often is
hindered by challenges both local and systemic. Many challenges impacting technology uptake
are grounded in everyday realities that often make it difficult to learn about, much less adopt, new
tools and approaches. Economic pressures, for example, continue to dominate conversations
about the acceptance of technology in education worldwide; the challenges facing STEM+
programs also include an economic component.
Top Ranked Challenges Across Three NMC Horizon Research Projects
Technology Outlook for
STEM+ Education 2012-2017
NMC Horizon Report
2012 Higher Education Edition
NMC Horizon Report
2012 K-12 Edition
Economic pressures and new
models of education are bringing
unprecedented competition to
the traditional models of higher
education.
Economic pressures and new
models of education are bringing
unprecedented competition to
the traditional models of tertiary
education.
Digital media literacy continues
its rise in importance as a key skill
in every discipline and profession.
Digital media literacy continues
its rise in importance as a key skill
in every discipline and profession.
Appropriate metrics of evaluation
lag behind the emergence of new
scholarly forms of authoring,
publishing, and researching.
K-12 must address the increased
blending of formal and informal
learning.
The demand for personalized
learning is not adequately
supported by current technology
or practices.
Digital media literacy continues
its rise in importance as a key skill
in every discipline and profession.
The demand for personalized
learning is not adequately
supported by current technology
or practices.
All three advisory boards agreed that digital media literacy is continuing its rise in importance as a
key skill in every discipline and profession. The challenge embedded in this long-term trend is that
this change is taking place more rapidly in the workplace than in undergraduate and graduate
training, and too often, in service professional development does not include skill building in
communication and digital media techniques. Nonetheless, many on the STEM+ advisory board
underscored the importance of these skills in science, technology, engineering, and math and
called for more systemic training in techniques like animation and video that can be very effective
aids to both understanding and articulating complex ideas and solutions.
Both the K-12 panel and the STEM+ panel noted that personalized learning is not adequately
supported by current teaching technology or formal learning practice; at the same time, informal
Executive Summary
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 4
learning is a space richly populated with clever apps and engaging, discovery-based learning
experiences. There is a consensus that STEM+ programs are by and large not keeping up with
pedagogical models that encourage students to take ownership over their own learning, develop
their own learning strategies, and even manage the pace of their learning. It is critical for
educators in STEM+ fields and beyond to build and participate in networks where they can share
pedagogical research and best practices.
These points and comparisons provide an important context for the main body of the report that
follows this summary. There, twelve key technologies are profiled, each on a single page that
describes and defines a technology ranked as very important for STEM+ education over the next
year, two to three years, and four to five years. Each of these pages opens with a carefully crafted
definition of the highlighted technology, outlines its educational relevance, points to several real
life examples of its current use on campuses or in educational practice, and ends with a short list of
additional readings for those who wish to learn more. Following those discussions are sections
that detail the STEM+ advisory board’s ten top-most ranked trends and challenges and articulate
why they are seen as highly influential factors in the adoption of any of these technologies over
the coming five years.
Those key sections, and this report in general, constitute a reference and straightforward
technology-planning guide for educators, researchers, administrators, policymakers, and
technologists. It is our hope that this research will help to inform the choices that institutions are
making about technology to improve, support, or extend teaching, learning, or research in STEM+
education. Educators and administrators worldwide look to the NMC Horizon Project and both its
global and regional reports as key strategic technology planning references, and it is for that
purpose that the report is presented.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 5
Time-to-Adoption: One Year or Less
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing refers to expandable, on-demand services and tools that are served to the user
via the Internet from a specialized data center. Cloud computing resources support collaboration,
file storage, virtualization, and access to computing cycles, and the number of available
applications that rely on cloud technologies have grown to the point that few institutions do not
make some use of the cloud, whether as a matter of policy or not. Cloud computing has come to
play an increasingly indispensable role in the utility of the many devices people use in everyday
life. Whether connecting at home, work, school, on the road, or in social spaces, nearly everyone
who uses the network relies on cloud computing to access or extend their information and
applications. As cloud computing has become ever more important, questions related to privacy,
data security, and even sovereignty have led to the development of private clouds. Recently,
hybrid clouds have been custom-designed to meet specialized security or other critical needs that
a commodity cloud cannot.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! Cloud-based collaboration tools allow STEM students to engage problems as teams, to
interact and brainstorm solutions easily, and to craft reports and presentations; often, the
very same tools can be used to support both global and local collaboration.
! Grid computing approaches allow cloud-based servers to be organized in ways that
greatly increase researchers’ ability to work with very large data sets, almost on demand,
increasing both the capacity and efficiency of institutional resources as needed.
! Using virtual machines in the cloud, computer science programs are able to simulate
virtually any computer, from historical machines to the latest modern super computers.
Cloud Computing in Practice
! The Gaia Research for European Astronomy Training - Initial Training Network is a program
where graduate students are exploring simulated data in the Gaia Universe Model
Snapshot — a dataset of 1.6 billion stars stored in Amazon EC2 Cloud: go.nmc.org/pitay.
! Internet2, in partnership with 16 major technology companies, including HP and Adobe,
launched NET+, a suite of specialized cloud services aimed at member universities across
the United States: go.nmc.org/ynnur.
! Swinburne University is exploring how private cloud computing can be an effective
vehicle for scientific workflows and data storage: go.nmc.org/swinb.
For Further Reading
Cloud Computing and Creativity: Learning on a Massively Open Online Course
go.nmc.org/clomoo
(Rita Kop and Fiona Carroll, European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, 20
December 2011.) This paper discusses how cloud computing can be leveraged to support
collaborative learning, specifically in massively open online courses.
Cloud Computing for the Poorest Countries
go.nmc.org/qulhg
(Quentin Hardy, New York Times, 29 August 2012.) Developing countries are gaining access
to cloud services through battery-operated phones and servers stationed in California.
Using the Cloud to be a Better Student
go.nmc.org/vempn
(Justin Marquis, Online Universities, 7 May 2012.) This article lists some of the many resources
available via the cloud to university students and others, from free textbooks, to document
creation and storage, to collaboration support.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 6
Time-to-Adoption: One Year or Less
Collaborative Environments
Collaborative environments are online spaces — often cloud-based — where the focus is on
making it easy to collaborate and work in groups, no matter where the participants may be. As the
typical educator’s 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 nonetheless collaborate on projects. Joint classroom-
based projects with students at other schools or in other countries are more and more
commonplace as strategies to expose learners to a variety of perspectives. The essential attribute
of the technologies in this set is that they make it easy for people to share interests and ideas, to
easily monitor their collective progress, and to see how ideas have evolved throughout the
process. These tools are compelling and widely adopted because they are not only easy to use, but
they are also either very low cost or free, and often accessible with a simple web browser.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! Federated experiments by nature benefit from the use of collaborative environments,
where researchers can easily share virtual lab books, common protocols, or critical
settings.
! Simple, easy-to-use, and often free video conferencing tools, such as Skype, make it easy
to involve colleagues or outside experts in discussions related to STEM topics of all kinds.
! Team-based learning situations, increasingly common in STEM-based learning, are greatly
enhanced with tools that allow teams to brainstorm, jointly record observations, generate
solutions, and prepare findings for dissemination.
Collaborative Environments in Practice
! The Kentucky Girls STEM Collaborative Project brings together organizations and
programs that are committed to informing and motivating young women to pursue
careers in STEM: go.nmc.org/ocrpm.
! Polymath is a collaborative space where mathematical quandaries are discussed openly
between contributing mathematicians: go.nmc.org/osiqp.
! The Technical University of Loja in Ecuador is building an e-learning platform to analyze
collaborative learning mediated by social web tools: go.nmc.org/rjpuf.
! The University Synapse project aims to create an environment that establishes
connections between academia, business, and research: go.nmc.org/heuho.
For Further Reading
Collaborative Learning Environments Sourcebook
go.nmc.org/bkjvl
(CriticalMethods.org; accessed 3 September 2012.) This online book describes and
provides links to a wide variety of collaboration resources and tools.
Creating an e-science Collaborative Environment for Neurophysiology (Video)
go.nmc.org/vcqqe
(Colin Ingram, University of Newcastle, Neuroinformatics Lecture, 23 November 2010.)
Cloud services can be used to create collaborative environments for learning and sharing
content in the subject of neurophysiology.
Learning Reimagined: Participatory, Peer, Global, Online
go.nmc.org/xshrq
(Howard Rheingold, DMLCentral, 22 July 2011.) This article addresses the implications of
using open educational resources to influence the pedagogy behind self-organizing peer
learning groups.
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© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 7
Time-to-Adoption: One Year or Less
Mobile Apps
There is a revolution that is taking place in software development that parallels the changes in
recent years in the music, publishing, and retail industries. Mass market is giving way to niche
market, and with it, the era of highly priced large suites of integrated software is giving way to a
new view of what software should be. Smartphones such as the Galaxy, iPhone, and Android have
redefined what we mean by mobile computing, and in the past three to four years, the small, often
simple, low-cost software extensions to these devices — apps — have become a hotbed of
development. New tools are free or sell for as little as 99 cents in the US, making it easier for
people — even students — to develop apps. A popular app can see millions of downloads in a
short time, and that potential market has spawned a flood of creativity that is instantly apparent in
the extensive collections available in the app stores. These retail phenomena provide an easy, fast,
totally new way to deliver software that reduces distribution and marketing costs significantly.
Apple’s app store opened in July 2008; Google’s followed in October of that year, and since then,
literally billions of apps have been sold or downloaded; simple but useful apps have found their
way into almost every form of human endeavor. Mobile apps are particularly useful in education as
they enable students to learn and experience new concepts wherever they are, often across
multiple devices.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! As interactive and social features become more integrated into mobile apps, scientists can
share their findings, making the app an ever-growing repository of information.
! Mobile apps provide STEM+ students with learning experiences and practice activities,
from animal dissection apps to 3D views of the periodic table.
! Students are becoming more interested in STEM+ subjects as mobile app programming
becomes an in-demand skill.
Mobile Apps in Practice
! BrainPOP offers an assortment of apps that engage students in STEM learning:
go.nmc.org/upusu.
! Engineering students at the University of New South Wales used the “Rubrik” app to help
them collect real-time data in a marketing design project competition: go.nmc.org/rubrik.
! In place of textbooks, the Duke Marine Lab developed a mobile app to teach an
undergraduate biology course about marine megafauna: go.nmc.org/uffmi.
! The Spanish IEEC/UNED iPhone app contains a digital electronics module and a virtual lab
that shows what happens inside of a MC68000 microprocessor when a program is
executed: go.nmc.org/rvced.
For Further Reading
5 New Apps to Spur STEM Learning
go.nmc.org/oaqcf
(Stephen Noonoo, The Journal, 6 February 2012.) Mobile apps that are effective for STEM
learning include a human skeleton app and an interactive digital dinosaur encyclopedia.
Why Care About STEM? The Future of Mobile App Development
go.nmc.org/zkdal
(Sam Morris, Tablets at Work, 16 February 2012.) This article describes the potential of
mobile app development to promote STEM fields by engaging learners in project-based
learning and by showing real-world applications.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 8
Time-to-Adoption: One Year or Less
Social Networking
Social networking is about making connections and bringing people together. Conversations that
take place in social networking contexts are designed to be brief, often media rich, and always
inherently shareable. Communications are generally open (depending on privacy settings) and
easily added to by members of the network. Today’s typical students use social networking sites
extensively, and in the place of email and other more traditional forms of communication.
Relationships are the currency of these systems, and already we are seeing systems evolve in ways
that are changing the way we search for, work with, and understand information by placing
people at the center of the network. Social operating system tools, such as the analytics built into
Facebook, help users understand who members of their communities know, how they know them,
and how deep those relationships actually are. They can lead us to build new social connections
we would otherwise have missed. As opportunities for virtual collaboration increase, trust-based
networks that can interpret and evaluate the depth of a person’s social connections will become
increasingly indispensable.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! In place of traditional methods of communication, such as email, educators now share
assignments and alert students to schedule changes through sites such as Facebook and
Twitter. In turn, students can ask questions about assignments and receive timely
responses from their teachers and classmates.
! More higher education institutions are relying on social networks as a means of recruiting
students; social networks display videos and provide updates on compelling projects that
are taking place in university media labs.
! Social networks provide an easy medium for informal learning that meets students on the
web where they already are.
Social Networking in Practice
! Dow Chemical launched a program where their scientists are engaging in social networks
to develop relationships with students at top universities: go.nmc.org/lzeav.
! Duke University and Murdoch University constructed a social map which students use to
share observations about the ecosystems of Northwestern Australia: go.nmc.org/rljfg.
! Irkutsk State Technical University in Russia partnered with the Chinese University of
Geosciences to build a social learning platform called the Mobile Grid Platform for STEM
Subjects: go.nmc.org/bnqtf.
! Math Overflow is a community for mathematicians to post complex problems, contribute
feedback, and designate the most accurate answers through voting: go.nmc.org/mdzvx.
For Further Reading
Social Media and Engineers: Live with it, OK?
go.nmc.org/pfbyw
(Brian Fuller, EE Times, 22 February 2011.) This article contains examples of how engineers
are blogging, tweeting, and interacting with each other online.
Social Media in the Business of Higher Education
go.nmc.org/fxhpc
(James Michael Nolan, Huffington Post, 27 June 2012.) Social networking has enhanced
institutions’ strategies for recruitment, marketing, development, public relations, and
more.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 9
Time-to-Adoption: Two to Three Years
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality (AR), a capability that has been around for decades, has shifted from what was
once seen as a gimmick to a tool with tremendous potential. The layering of information over 3D
space produces a new experience of the world, sometimes referred to as “blended reality,” and is
fueling the broader migration of computing from the desktop to the mobile device, bringing with
it new expectations regarding access to information and new opportunities for learning. While the
most prevalent uses of augmented reality so far have been in the consumer sector (for marketing,
social engagement, amusement, or location-based information), new uses seem to emerge almost
daily, as tools for creating new applications become even easier to use. A key characteristic of
augmented reality is its ability to respond to user input. This interactivity confers significant
potential for learning and assessment; with it, students can construct new understanding based
on interactions with virtual objects that bring underlying data to life. Dynamic processes,
extensive datasets, and objects too large or too small to be manipulated can be brought into a
student’s personal space at a scale and in a form easy to understand and work with. A variation of
augmented reality is augmented virtuality, where virtual environments are augmented by
data/phenomena from the real world.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! Augmented reality constructs can provide contextual, in situ learning experiences that
foster exploration of real world data in virtual surroundings and simulations. For example,
Yale University constructed a virtual papermill that allowed student managers to
manipulate processes and judge the ecological impacts of their decisions.
! Games that are based in the real world and augmented with networked data can give
educators powerful new ways to show relationships and connections in computer science.
! Students doing outdoor fieldwork can access AR applications to overlay maps and
information about their surroundings, or to enter field observations and data that is
automatically geocoded as the records are created.
Augmented Reality in Practice
! At Super School University, educators and students from 34 countries are working as
scientists, using the island of Santa Luzia for a collaborative augmented reality project:
go.nmc.org/stem.
! Boise State University replaced their cadaver lab with an augmented reality tool that
provides real-time 3D modeling of the human anatomy: go.nmc.org/latju.
! Microsoft partnered with University of Washington to develop augmented reality contact
lenses that measure glucose levels of a wearer: go.nmc.org/ixjhf.
! The University of Exeter in the UK built an augmented reality mobile app that transforms
the campus into a living lab, where users can view scientific data about their surroundings:
go.nmc.org/llvuv.
For Further Reading
Augmented Reality for Chemists (Video)
go.nmc.org/augm
(Art Olson, Chemical & Engineering News, 19 September 2011.) This video demonstrates
how AR is built, using a webcam that tracks the motions of a 3D model of a chemical.
Google’s ‘Project Glass’ Augmented Reality Glasses Are Real And In Testing
go.nmc.org/glass
(Chris Velazco, Tech Crunch, 4 April 2012.) Google developed an AR glasses model that will allow
users to take photos on command, display the location of nearby friends, and more.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 10
Time-to-Adoption: Two to Three Years
Learning Analytics
Learning analytics refers to the interpretation of a wide range of data produced by and gathered
on behalf of students to assess academic progress, predict future performance, and spot potential
issues. Data are collected from explicit student actions, such as completing assignments and
taking exams, and from tacit actions, including online social interactions, extracurricular activities,
posts on discussion forums, and other activities that are not typically viewed as part of a student’s
work. The goal of learning analytics is to enable teachers and schools to tailor educational
opportunities to each student’s level of need and ability. Learning analytics promises to harness
the power of advances in data mining, interpretation, and modeling to improve understanding of
teaching and learning, and tailor education to individual students more effectively. Still in its very
early stages, learning analytics is an emerging scientific practice that hopes to redefine what we
know about learning by mining and investigating the vast amount of data produced by students
as they engage in academic activities.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! As the need for more authentic assessment in STEM subjects increases, learning analytics
help educators measure students’ concept mastery across a multitude of formats.
! If used effectively, learning analytics can help surface early signals that indicate a student is
struggling, allowing faculty and teaching staff to address issues quickly.
! Learning analytics draws pattern matching and analysis techniques from sciences like fluid
dynamics and petroleum engineering.
Learning Analytics in Practice
! In a pilot project at the University of Kentucky, learning analytics was used to measure and
improve collaborative writing for computer science students: go.nmc.org/xzifk.
! Learning analytics was used at the Graduate School of Medicine at the University of
Wollongong to help design a new curriculum with a clinical focus: go.nmc.org/zgxnk.
! The University of Canterbury in New Zealand is using a learning analytics platform called
LearnTrak to increase student retention: go.nmc.org/oipzz.
! The University of Michigan is leveraging learning management systems to monitor
student learning in the field of engineering: go.nmc.org/peqjm.
For Further Reading
Data Mining and Online Learning
go.nmc.org/nyhsn
(Jim Shimabukuro, Educational Technology & Change Journal, 7 August 2011.) The author
helps educators incorporate learning analytics into their daily workflows.
Exploring the Khan Academy’s use of Learning Data and Learning Analytics
go.nmc.org/rttpc
(K. Walsh, Emerging EdTech22, April 2012.) The Khan Academy created a “Teacher Toolkit,”
which includes graphic reports to help teachers personalize the learning process.
Learning Analytics: The Coming Third Wave
go.nmc.org/mknvy
(Malcolm Brown, EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, April 2011.) Third-party learning analytics
applications are beginning to make the tools more cost-effective.
Learning and Knowledge Analytics
go.nmc.org/igyjh
(George Siemens; accessed 3 September 2012.) Renowned learning analytics expert
George Siemens frequently updates this website with his insights on the topic, from
keynotes to presentations, to blog posts.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 11
Time-to-Adoption: Two to Three Years
Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
Coined in 2008 by Stephen Downes and George Siemens, the term “massively open online
courses,” or MOOCs, refers to online courses that people can take from anywhere across the world.
Such classes attract both novices and professionals, and in the best examples, lines between
instructor and student roles are intentionally blurred. Early examples, such as EdX and Coursera,
have attracted tens of thousands of participants who contribute to both the materials and
organization of the course. The basis of each MOOC is an expansive and diverse set of content,
contributed by a variety of experts, educators, and instructors in a specific field. What makes this
content set especially unique is that it is by design a “remix” — the materials are not necessarily
designed to go together but become associated with each other through the MOOC. A key
component of the original vision is that all course materials and the course itself are both open
source and free — with the door left open for a fee if a participant taking the course wishes
university credit to be transcripted for the work. A second key element is that the structure of
MOOCs be minimalist, so as to allow participants to design their own learning path based upon
whatever specific knowledge or skill they want to gain. The point is that participants can control
how, where, when, and even what they learn.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! MOOCs fill a large gap for many who simply want to participate in rich learning
opportunities without the need to be admitted to a course of study or applying to a
particular institution.
! Professionals who enroll in MOOCs to further their own learning can also contribute to the
learning of others via mentor roles, or even as part of the teaching team.
! When more learners and institutions participate in MOOCs by sharing scientific research
and other content, it leads to sustainability of the MOOC ecosystem over time.
Massively Open Online Courses in Practice
! The Centro Superior para la Enseñanza Virtual (CSEV) is encouraging MOOC enrollment to
Latin American communities through an agreement with MIT to offer MOOCs in Spanish:
go.nmc.org/gyorb.
! Coursera, a start-up by two Stanford University professors, is offering over 30 free online
classes, including science fiction and health policy. A "calibrated peer-review" system is
currently in the works: go.nmc.org/course.
! The Open University of Australia is an online university with a collection of courses and
units provided by reputable universities around the continent: go.nmc.org/openu.
For Further Reading
Disruptive Innovation — in Education
go.nmc.org/disrup
(Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office, 20 April 2012.) Learn how student interaction in the
community forums of MITx has created an unpredictably advantageous learning
experience.
What You Need to Know About MOOC's
go.nmc.org/wdnxj
(The Chronicle of Higher Education, accessed 27 August 2012.) The Chronicle discusses the
major players in the MOOC movement and brings together the varying opinions on the
impact of these courses.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 12
Time-to-Adoption: Two to Three Years
Personal Learning Environments
Personal learning environments (PLEs) are a loosely defined term used to describe tools that
support self-directed and group-based learning, focus on individual learning goals and needs,
with great capacity for flexibility and customization. The term has been evolving for some time,
but has crystalized recently around the personal collections of tools and resources a person
assembles to support their own learning — both formal and informal. The conceptual basis for
PLEs has shifted significantly in the last two years, as smartphones, tablets, and apps have begun
to emerge as compelling alternatives to browser-based PLEs and e-portfolios. There has been a
corresponding move away from centralized, server-based solutions to distributed and portable
ones. Using a growing set of free and simple tools and applications, or even a personally
assembled collection of apps on a tablet, it is already easy to support one’s ongoing social,
professional, and learning activities with a handy collection of resources and tools that are always
with you. While the concept of PLEs is still fairly fluid, it is clear that a PLE is not simply a
technology but an approach or process that is individualized by design, and thus different from
person to person.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! Abstracts, key papers, and other research materials are easy to store in the libraries of
current smartphones and tablets; course readings can easily be added to these libraries.
! As students progress through their courses of study, their PLEs grow in sophistication as
well as utility.
! PLEs provide a framework for STEM students to assemble collections of reference
materials, specialized calculators, and tools that are easily at hand.
Personal Learning Environments in Practice
! “Innovative Technologies for an Engaging Classroom” is a pan-European project that joins
policy-makers with educators to develop scalable learning environments: go.nmc.org/itec.
! Sabana University in Columbia conducted a case study on the use of personal learning
environments as a platform for a master's course: go.nmc.org/luaho.
! Waukesha STEM Academy uses personalized and blended learning strategies to empower
students to take ownership of their learning style and pace: go.nmc.org/socyf.
For Further Reading
27 Places to Get a Free Science Education
go.nmc.org/rsfwj
(Citizen Science Center, 11 August 2012.) This is a collection of online resources for studying
science topics that allow users to self-pace their studies.
Preparing Students to Learn Without Us
go.nmc.org/prepar
(Will Richardson, ASCD Educational Leadership, February 2012.) As our culture increasingly
emphasizes customization many education models are becoming more individually
focused.
This Time It’s Personal
go.nmc.org/person
(Jennifer Demski, The Journal, 4 January 2012.) This article emphasizes the crucial role of
changing the current classroom infrastructure to make it more student-centered in order
to incorporate technology in a transformative way.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 13
Time-to-Adoption: Four to Five Years
Collective Intelligence
Collective intelligence is a term for the knowledge embedded within societies or large groups of
individuals. It can be explicit, in the form of knowledge gathered and recorded by many people.
The tacit intelligence that results from the data generated by the activities of many people over
time is extremely powerful. Google uses such data to continuously refine its search and ad results.
Discovering and harnessing the intelligence in such data — revealed through analyses of patterns,
correlations, and flows — is enabling ever more accurate predictions about people’s preferences
and behaviors, and helping researchers and everyday users understand and map relationships,
and gauge the relative significance of ideas and events. Two new forms of information stores are
being created in real time by thousands of people in the course of their daily activities, some
explicitly collaborating to create collective knowledge stores, some contributing implicitly
through the patterns of their choices and actions. The data in these new information stores has
come to be called collective intelligence, and both forms have already proven to be compelling
applications of the network. Explicit knowledge stores refine knowledge through the
contributions of thousands of authors; implicit stores allow the discovery of entirely new
knowledge by capturing trillions of key clicks and decisions as people use the network in the
course of their everyday lives.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! Collective intelligence is embedded in scientific research networks. Data mining tools
provide both a way to search for patterns and insights as well as to illustrate the topic.
! Professional networks provide an avenue for STEM professionals to make instant updates
to research and topics, absent the inherent time constraints involved in updating a
traditional paper.
! The study of tacit knowledge stores such as usage or traffic patterns, user interactions, and
similar large datasets often leads to unexpected insights.
Collective Intelligence in Practice
! ChemSpider, developed by the Royal Society of Chemistry, is a free database for chemical
structures, gathering research from across the web into a single repository:
go.nmc.org/zuvpk.
! The Khan Academy is a vast but highly curated collection of videos that supplement
school curriculum: go.nmc.org/jlwbj.
! The National Archives partnered with Wikipedia on the Wikipedians-in-Residence
program, where volunteer experts publicly document the history of cultural institutions:
go.nmc.org/wsgub.
For Further Reading
Crowd Computing and Human Computation Algorithms at Collective Intelligence (video)
go.nmc.org/yptvv
(Rob Miller, 2012 Collective Intelligence Conference.) In an event sponsored by the
National Science Foundation, a researcher explores the infrastructures of collective
intelligence.
Interview with Pierre Lévy on Collective Intelligence Literacy
go.nmc.org/smzwz
(Pierre Lévy, Flat Classroom, 20 October 2011.) A media scholar discusses collective intelligence in
the context of new media and digital networks, and the skills and philosophies people need to
contribute to the conversation.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 14
Time-to-Adoption: Four to Five Years
The Internet of Things
The Internet of Things has become a sort of shorthand for network-aware smart objects that
connect the physical world with the world of information. A smart object has four key attributes: it
is small, and thus easy to attach to almost anything; it has a unique identifier; it has a small store of
data or information; and it has a way to communicate that information to an external device on
demand. The Internet of Things extends that concept by using TCP/IP as the means to convey the
information, thus making objects addressable (and findable) on the Internet. Objects that carry
information with them have long been used for the monitoring of sensitive equipment or
materials, point-of-sale purchases, passport tracking, inventory management, identification, and
similar applications. Smart objects are the next generation of those technologies — they “know”
about a certain kind of information, such as cost, age, temperature, color, pressure, or humidity —
and can pass that information along easily and instantly upon electronic request. They are ideal for
digital management of physical objects, monitoring their status, tracking them throughout their
lifespan, alerting someone when they are in danger of being damaged or spoiled — or even
annotating them with descriptions, instructions, warranties, tutorials, photographs, connections to
other objects, and any other kind of contextual information imaginable. The Internet of Things
would make access to these data as easy as it is to use the web.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! Attached to scientific samples, TCP/IP-enabled smart objects already are alerting scientists
and researchers to conditions that may impair the quality or utility of the samples.
! Pill-shaped microcameras are used in medical diagnostics and teaching to traverse the
human digestive tract and send back thousands of images to pinpoint sources of illness.
! TCP/IP enabled sensors and information stores make it possible for geology and
anthropology departments to monitor or share the status and history of even the tiniest
artifact in their collections of specimens from anywhere to anyone with an Internet
connection.
Internet of Things in Practice
! Cosm is a platform that connects devices and apps so they can store and exchange data.
Developers are using it to create their own smart products: go.nmc.org/kzhep.
! In Rio de Janeiro, scientists are deploying ground and airborne smart sensors to predict
heavy rains and mudslides up to 48 hours in advance: go.nmc.org/mzytn.
! MIT’s Amarino is a toolkit that allows smartphone users to control the lights in a room and
detect exposure levels to potentially harmful environmental factors: go.nmc.org/uyllx.
For Further Reading
Futurist's Cheat Sheet: Internet of Things
go.nmc.org/cpfez
(Dan Rowinski, Read Write Web, 31 August 2012.) The author explores a world where
objects have their own IP addresses and communicate with each other via WiFi or cellular
networks.
How the "Internet of Things" Is Turning Cities Into Living Organisms
go.nmc.org/cxmqs
(Christopher Mims, Scientific American, 6 December 2011.) If city systems are able to react
to information stored in the cloud, they can respond to new environmental conditions.
The Internet Gets Physical
go.nmc.org/yirhc
(Steve Lohr, The New York Times, 17 December 2011.) Smart devices are linking humans to
their environment in ways that will benefit energy conservation, health care, and more.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 15
Time-to-Adoption: Four to Five Year
Natural User Interfaces (NUIs)
It is already common to interact with a new class of devices entirely by using natural movements
and gestures. Smart phones, tablets, game consoles, and the new class of “smart TVs” are part of a
growing list of other devices built with natural user interfaces that accept input in the form of taps,
swipes, and other ways of touching; hand and arm motions; body movement; and increasingly,
natural language. These are the first in a growing array of alternative input devices that allow
computers to recognize and interpret natural physical gestures as a means of control. Natural user
interfaces allow users to engage in virtual activities with movements similar to what they would
use in the real world, manipulating content intuitively. The idea of being able to have a completely
natural interaction with your device is not new, but neither has its full potential been realised.
What makes natural user interfaces (NUIs) especially interesting is the burgeoning high fidelity of
systems that understand gestures, facial expressions, and their nuances, as well as the
convergence of gesture-sensing technology with voice recognition, which allows users to interact
in an almost natural fashion, with gesture, expression, and voice communicating their intentions
to devices.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! As the ability of NUIs to read subtle changes in facial expressions and user reactions
improves, STEM software will be able to “sense” when a student is struggling or frustrated
with material.
! Medical students increasingly rely on simulators employing natural user interfaces to
practice precise manipulations, such as catheter insertions, that would be far less
productive if they had to try to simulate sensitive movements with a mouse and keyboard.
! NUIs make devices seem easier to use and more accessible; interactions are far more
intuitive, which promotes exploration and engagement.
Natural User Interfaces in Practice
! A mechanical engineering team at Purdue University created Handy-Potter, a natural user
interface that can modify and create shapes in 3D based on hand gestures:
go.nmc.org/whfhc.
! The Norrköping Visualization Center and the Center for Medical Image Science and
Visualization has developed a way for detailed CT scans to be manipulated with gestures,
allowing medical students and forensic scientists to refine their autopsy and dissection
techniques without needing an actual cadaver: go.nmc.org/autop.
! Students working in The Human Media Lab at Queen's University created the TeleHuman,
a 3D visualization of a person based on Microsoft Kinect sensor technology:
go.nmc.org/aluov.
For Further Reading
The Human Voice, as Game Changer
go.nmc.org/voice
(Natasha Singer, The New York Times, 31 March 2012.) This article paints a picture of how
the voice-enabled future will materialize as we begin to interact in new ways with
everyday objects, such as refrigerators, thermostats, alarm systems, and other devices.
Natural User Interfaces
go.nmc.org/cvtqw
(Charles Xie, The Advanced Educational Modeling Laboratory, 21 August 2012.) The head of
the Mixed Reality Labs project funded by the National Science Foundation explains Natural
Learning Interfaces (NLI), natural user interfaces that allow users to interact with
simulations on a computer.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 16
Time-to-Adoption: Four to Five Years
Wearable Technology
Wearable technology refers to devices that can be worn by users, taking the form of an accessory
such as jewelry, sunglasses, a backpack, or even actual items of clothing like shoes or a jacket.
Often discreet, a person who comes into contact with someone wearing a device may not even
realize that the article of clothing is a piece of technology. The benefit of wearable technology is
that it can conveniently integrate tools, devices, power needs, and connectivity within a user’s
everyday life and movements. Google's Project Glass features one of the most talked about current
examples —the device resembles a pair of glasses but with a single lens. A user can literally see
information about their surroundings displayed in front of them, such as the names of friends who
are in close proximity, or nearby places to access data that would be relevant to a research project.
Wearable technology is still very new, but one can easily imagine accessories such as gloves that
enhance the user’s ability to feel or control something they are not directly touching. Wearable
technology already in the market includes clothing that charges batteries via decorative solar cells,
allows interactions with a user’s devices via sewn in controls or touch pads, or collects data on a
person's exercise regimen from sensors embedded in the heels of their shoes.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! Enabling technologies such as flexible screens or new forms of conducting materials or
insulators are natural research pathways for students interested in embedding devices or
their components into clothing.
! Smart jewelry or other accessories could alert wearers to hazardous conditions, such as
exposure to carbon monoxide.
! Wearable technology provides an engaging set of design and engineering challenges that
cuts across a wide range of STEM disciplines.
Wearable Technology in Practice
! Keyglove is a wireless, open-source input device a user wears over the hand to control
devices, enter data, play games, and manipulate 3D objects: go.nmc.org/fylwm.
! Researchers at the University of South Carolina converted the fibers of a t-shirt into
activated carbon to transform it into electrical storage capacity that can be used to keep
mobile devices charged: go.nmc.org/zscll.
! The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign designed a flexible circuit to enhance
surgical gloves and improve sensory response: go.nmc.org/hwcpj.
For Further Reading
Smart Couture: Wearable Tech Finds Its Fit
go.nmc.org/vhgnx
(David Zax, Fast Company, 15 August 2011.) The latest generation of wearable technology
is sleeker and more comfortable. This article provides several innovative examples.
Wearable Tech Market on the Upswing
go.nmc.org/fqpor
(Lucas Mearian, Computer World New Zealand, 27 August 2012.) This article describes
wearable devices that will be emerging for daily use allowing wearers to instantly access
personal data, including glasses and watches that collect and transmit health data.
Wearable Technology: a Vision of the Future?
go.nmc.org/sxgxs
(Charles Arthur, The Guardian, 18 July 2012.) Though tools such as smart glasses increase
our connectedness to our surroundings, they raise the privacy concerns that come with
wearing a device that records everything we see or do.
Top Ten Trends
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 17
Top Ten Trends
The technologies featured in the NMC Horizon Project are embedded within a contemporary
context that reflects the realities of the time, both in the sphere of education and in the world at
large. To assure this perspective, each advisory board researches, identifies, and ranks key trends
that are currently affecting the practice of teaching, learning, and research in education, and uses
these as a lens for its work in predicting the uptake of emerging technologies in whatever sector is
their focus.
These trends are surfaced through an extensive review of current articles, interviews, papers, and
new research. Once identified, the list of trends is ranked according to how significant an impact
they are likely to have on education in the next five years. The following trends have been
identified as key drivers of technology adoptions in STEM+ education for the period of 2012
through 2017; they are listed here in the order they were ranked by the advisory board.
1) Teaching paradigms across all sectors are shifting to include online learning, hybrid
learning, and much more teamwork and collaboration. Budget cuts have forced institutions to
re-evaluate their traditional approaches and find alternatives to seat-bound learning models. What
Horizon Project researchers began tracking several years ago as a challenge has morphed in this
climate into an increasingly interesting trend. Students already spend much of their free time on
the Internet. We are beginning to see developments in online learning that offer similar — and for
particular groups of students, even better — environments than physical campuses, and include
team tasks and digital skills. Hybrid models, which blend classroom and online experiences, are
often seen as the best of both worlds, and thus are emerging as an ever more common norm for
course design.
2) Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are proliferating, especially in STEM disciplines.
Led by the successful early experiments of world-class institutions (like MIT and Stanford), MOOCs
have captured the imagination of senior administrators and trustees like few other educational
innovations have. High profile offerings are being assembled under the banner of institutional
efforts like MITx, and large-scale collaborations like Coursera and the Code Academy. As the ideas
evolve, MOOCs are increasingly seen as a very intriguing alternative to credit-based instruction.
The prospect of a single course achieving enrollments in the tens of thousands is bringing serious
conversations on topics like micro-credit to the highest levels of institutional leadership.
3) The abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the Internet is
increasingly challenging us to revisit our roles as educators. Institutions must consider the
unique value that each adds to a world in which information is everywhere. In such a world, sense-
making and the ability to assess the credibility of information are paramount. Mentoring and
preparing students for the world in which they will live is again at the forefront. Higher education
institutions have always been seen as critical paths to educational credentialing, but challenges
from competing sources are redefining what these paths can look like.
4) People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want. This
trend is certainly true for most adults, and many well-paying jobs literally can be done from
anywhere that has a mobile Internet connection. It is also true for many of today’s school-age
children, who live their lives in a state of constant connection to their peers, social groups, and
family. The implications for formal learning are profound, as the flipped classroom uses the
resources on the Internet to free up valuable teacher classroom time, and fundamentally changes
the teacher-student relationship. When students know how to use their network connections for
more than texting, learning becomes much more serendipitous, opening the door to “just-in-time”
learning, and “discovered” learning.
Top Ten Trends
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 18
5) New pedagogical models are emerging that encourage a wide range of technologies and
tools to be imbedded seamlessly into the course design. In the traditional pattern, when a new
technology emerges, there is a period of time where it is studied as an independent variable to
find out its impact on learning outcomes. New pedagogies are emerging, however, in which
technologies play a supporting, rather than a central role, allowing much faster assessment of the
value of the tools employed. In these models, more basic ideas are central, such as 24/7 Internet
access for students, use of their personal devices, and considerable flexibility in the apps or
software applied to the learning goals.
6) Increasingly, students want to use their own technology for learning. As new technologies
are developed at a more rapid pace and at a higher quality, there is a wide variety of different
devices, gadgets, and tools from which to choose. Utilizing a specific device has become
something very personal — an extension of someone’s personality and learning style — for
example, the iPhone vs. the Android. There is comfort in giving a presentation or performing
research with tools that are more familiar and productive at the individual level. And, with
handheld technology becoming mass produced and more affordable, students are more likely to
have access to more advanced equipment in their personal lives than at school.
7) There is a new emphasis in the classroom on more challenge-based and active learning.
Challenge-based learning and similar methods foster more active learning experiences, both
inside and outside the classroom. As technologies such as tablets and smartphones now have
proven applications in schools, educators are leveraging these tools, which students already use,
to connect the curriculum with real life issues. The active learning approaches are decidedly more
student-centered, allowing them to take control of how they engage with a subject and to
brainstorm and implement solutions to pressing local and global problems. The hope is that if
learners can connect course material with their own lives and their surrounding communities,
then they will become more excited to learn and immerse themselves in the subject matter.
8) Educational games are increasingly being used to not only master STEM concepts, but
also apply and assess them. Games have proven benefits in engaging learners of all ages and
helping them better understand complex material. Taking that notion one step further,
simulations and game-based scenarios enable students to apply what they have learned in a
realistic environment and receive instant feedback. Game development is one of many strategies
employed in STEM environments, as it is inherently multi-disciplinary, requiring programming,
engineering, design, and other key skills to create a successful game.
9) Social media is changing the way people interact, present ideas and information, and
judge the quality of content and contributions. Nearly one billion people use Facebook
regularly; other social media platforms extend those numbers to nearly one third of all people on
the planet. Educators, students, alumni, and even the general public routinely use social media to
share news about scientific and other developments. Likewise, scientists and researchers use social
media to keep their communities informed of new developments. The fact that all of these various
groups are using social media speaks to its effectiveness in engaging people. The impact of these
changes in scholarly communication and on the credibility of information remains to be seen, but
it is clear that social media has found significant traction in almost every education sector.
10) Institutions are increasingly adopting tools and technologies that allow teachers and
students to better collaborate. Social networks and cloud-based tools and applications are
changing the ways teachers and students communicate with each other. Open resources such as
wikis and Google Apps enable the free exchange of ideas and prompt insightful discussions
between teachers and students. The result is more opportunities for collaboration, and what is
increasingly seen as a positive change in the dynamics of teacher-student relationships.
Top Ten Challenges
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 19
Top Ten Challenges
Along with the trends discussed in the preceding section, the advisory board noted a number of
important challenges faced by STEM+ educators. Like the trends, the ten challenges described
below were drawn from a careful analysis of current events, papers, articles, and similar sources, as
well as from the personal experience of the advisory board members in their roles as leaders in
education and technology. The ten challenges ranked as most significant in terms of their impact
on teaching, learning, or research in STEM+ education in the coming five years are listed here, in
the order of importance assigned them by the advisory board.
1) Economic pressures and new models of education are bringing unprecedented
competition to the traditional models of higher education. Across the board, institutions are
looking for ways to control costs while still providing a high quality of service. Institutions are
challenged by the need to support ever more students with fewer resources and staff. As a result,
creative institutions are developing new models to serve students. As these pressures continue,
other models may emerge that diverge from traditional ones. Simply capitalizing on new
technology, however, is not enough; the new models must use these tools and services to engage
students on a deeper level.
2) Digital media literacy continues its rise in importance as a key skill in every discipline and
profession. This challenge appears at the top of the list because despite the widespread
agreement on the importance of digital media literacy, training in the supporting skills and
techniques is still very rare in teacher education. As classroom professionals begin to realize that
they are limiting their students by not helping them to develop and use digital media literacy skills
across the curriculum, the lack of formal training is being offset through professional development
or informal learning, but we are far from seeing digital media literacy as a norm. This challenge is
exacerbated by the fact that digital literacy is less about tools and more about thinking, and thus
skills and standards based on tools and platforms have proven to be somewhat ephemeral.
3) The demand for personalized learning is not adequately supported by current technology
or practices. The increasing demand for education that is customized to each student's unique
needs is driving the development of new technologies that provide more learner choice and
control and allow for differentiated instruction. It has become clear that one-size-fits-all teaching
methods are neither effective nor acceptable for today's diverse students. Technology can and
should support individual choices about access to materials and expertise, amount and type of
educational content, and methods of teaching.
4) Cross-institution authentication and detailed access policies are needed to allow sharing
of online experiments among institutions. While teachers are more equipped than ever to
produce online experiments, what they are creating is rarely scalable. Too many institutions are
recreating the same types of experiments over and over. Quality standards may improve the reuse
of federated designs and experiments, but institutions also need to consider standards that would
allow students from collaborating institutions to access data and tools across security domains.
5) Appropriate metrics of evaluation lag behind the emergence of new scholarly forms of
authoring, publishing, and researching. Traditional approaches to scholarly evaluation such as
citation-based metrics, for example, are often hard to apply to research that is disseminated or
conducted via social media. New forms of peer review and approval, such as reader ratings,
inclusion in and mention by influential blogs, tagging, incoming links, and re-tweeting, are arising
from the natural actions of the global community of educators, with increasingly relevant and
interesting results. These forms of scholarly corroboration are not yet well understood by
mainstream faculty and academic decision makers, creating a gap between what is possible and
what is acceptable.
Top Ten Challenges
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 20
6) Institutional barriers present formidable challenges to moving forward in a constructive
way with emerging technologies. Too often it is the educational system’s own processes and
practices that limit broader uptake of new technologies. Much resistance to change is simply
comfort with the status quo, but in other cases, such as in promotion and tenure reviews,
experimentation or innovative applications of technologies are often seen as outside the role of
researcher or scientist.
7) Traditional forms of assessment do not translate well into ICT-mediated learning
scenarios. As new technologies are embedded in course designs within STEM disciplines,
assessment processes must evolve as well. Writing assignments can be a very effective part of an
assessment strategy, for example, but when enrollments exceed a few dozen students, they
become impractical. As ICT environments scale, the assessment models must as well. We must find
ways to ensure students fully demonstrate and apply their knowledge.
8) As new advances in technology present new opportunities in education, questions of
inequity and inequality have never been more important. Emerging technologies and tools
are supposed to provide more open access to all. However, often times only those who already
have access to resources, such as Internet, can use the new tools. The challenge is to ensure we
make technology choices that expand opportunity, while we also work on policies and programs
that can narrow the divide.
9) Online educational resources must be more mobile-friendly. As smartphones and tablets
gain more traction in educational settings, there is a demand for online content to keep up, to
load quickly, to be of high quality, and to be easy to use. Online educational resources must meet
this demand to be relevant to today’s students.
10) The growing choice that emerging technologies make possible — and how people
navigate through this choice — is an on-going challenge. When there are so many options for
both educators and students on which technologies to use, it is easy to lose sight of how they will
impact the teaching and learning process. In online learning environments in particular, there is a
plethora of available communication, collaboration, and information management platforms.
Individually, each tool or application may be effective, but when used all together, they can create
a complex user interface where the focus is on the technologies rather than the learning.
Navigating through the potential technologies and understanding how they will interact with
each other to create a simple, easy-to-use environment is a pressing issue that must be solved at
the conceptual — not implementation — level.
Methodology
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 21
Methodology
The process used to research and create the Technology Outlook for STEM+ Education 2012-2017:
An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis is very much rooted in the methods used throughout
the NMC Horizon Project. All publications of the NMC’s Horizon Project are produced using a
carefully constructed process that is informed by both primary and secondary research. Dozens of
technologies, meaningful trends, and critical challenges are examined for possible inclusion in the
report for each edition. Every report draws on the considerable expertise of an internationally
renowned advisory board that first considers a broad set of important emerging technologies,
challenges, and trends, and then examines each of them in progressively more detail, reducing the
set until the final listing of technologies, trends, and challenges is selected.
Much of the process takes place online, where it is captured and placed in the NMC Horizon
Project wiki. This wiki, which has grown into a resource of hundreds of pages, is intended to be a
completely transparent window onto the work of the project, and contains the entire record of the
research for each of the various editions. The section of the wiki used for the Technology Outlook
for STEM+ Education 2012-2017 can be found at stem.wiki.nmc.org.
The procedure for selecting the topics that will be in the report includes a modified Delphi process
now refined over years of producing the NMC Horizon Report series, and it begins with the
assembly of the advisory board. The board as a whole is intended to represent a wide range of
backgrounds, nationalities, and interests, yet each member brings a particularly relevant expertise.
To date, hundreds of internationally recognized practitioners and experts have participated in the
NMC Horizon Project Advisory Boards; in any given year, a third of advisory board members are
new, ensuring a flow of fresh perspectives each year.
Once the advisory board for a particular edition is constituted, their work begins with a systematic
review of the literature — press clippings, reports, essays, and other materials — that pertains to
emerging technology. Advisory board members are provided with an extensive set of background
materials when the project begins, and are then asked to comment on them, identify those that
seem especially worthwhile, and add to the set. The group discusses existing applications of
emerging technology and brainstorms new ones. A key criterion for the inclusion of a topic is the
potential relevance of the topic to teaching, learning, research, or information management.
A carefully selected set of RSS feeds from dozens of relevant publications ensures that background
resources stay current as the project progresses. They are used to inform the thinking of the
participants throughout the process.
Following the review of the literature, the advisory board engages in the central focus of the
research — the research questions that are at the core of the NMC Horizon Project. These
questions are designed to elicit a comprehensive listing of interesting technologies, challenges,
and trends from the advisory board:
1. Which of the key technologies catalogued in the Horizon Listing will be most important to
teaching, learning, or research in STEM+ education within the next five years?
2. What key technologies are missing from our list? Consider these related questions:
a. What would you list among the established technologies that some STEM+ institutions
and programs are using today that arguably ALL institutions and programs should be
using broadly to support or enhance teaching, learning, or research?
b. What technologies that have a solid user base in consumer, entertainment, or other
industries should STEM+ institutions and programs be actively looking for ways to
apply?
c. What are the key emerging technologies you see developing to the point that STEM+
institutions and programs should begin to take notice during the next four to five
years?
Methodology
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 22
3. What trends do you expect to have a significant impact on the ways in which STEM+
institutions and programs approach our core missions of teaching, learning, and research?
4. What do you see as the key challenges related to teaching, learning, and research that
STEM+ institutions and programs will face during the next five years?
One of the advisory board’s most important tasks is to answer these questions as systematically
and broadly as possible, so as to ensure that the range of relevant topics is considered. Once this
work is done, a process that moves quickly over just a few days, the advisory board moves to a
unique consensus-building process based on an iterative Delphi-based methodology.
In the first step of this approach, the responses to the research questions are systematically ranked
and placed into adoption horizons by each advisory board member using a multi-vote system that
allows members to weight their selections. Each member is asked to also identify the timeframe
during which they feel the technology would enter mainstream use — defined for the purpose of
the project as about 20% of institutions adopting it within the period discussed. (This figure is
based on the research of Geoffrey A. Moore and refers to the critical mass of adoptions needed for
a technology to have a chance of entering broad use.) These rankings are compiled into a
collective set of responses, and inevitably, the ones around which there is the most agreement are
quickly apparent.
For additional detail on the project methodology or to review the instrumentation, the ranking,
and the interim products behind the report, please visit the project wiki at stem.wiki.nmc.org.
——————— !" ———————
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 23
2012 Horizon Project STEM+ Advisory Board
Larry Johnson
Project Director
NMC
United States
Sergio Martin
Co-Principal Investigator
UNED
Spain
Samantha Adams
Lead Writer and Researcher
NMC
United States
Russ Meier
Co-Principal Investigator
Milwaukee School of Engineering
United States
Manuel Castro
Co-Principal Investigator
UNED
Spain
Daniel Torres
Co-Principal Investigator
CSEV
Spain
Kristin Atkins
Qualcomm
United States
Michael E. Auer
Carinthia Tech Institute and
International Association of
Online Engineering
Austria
Philip H. Bailey
MIT
United States
Ivica Boticki
University of Zagreb
Croatia
Rafael Calvo
University of Sydney
Australia
Vanessa Chang
Curtin University
Australia
Shane Cronin
Cork Institute of Technology
Ireland
Uriel Cukierman
Universidad Tecnológica
Nacional
Argentina
Vicki Davis
Cool Cat Teacher
United States
Jennifer DeBoer
MIT
United States
Carlos Delgado Kloos
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Spain
Philip Desenne
Harvard University
United States
Zeinab El Maadawi
Cairo University
Egypt
Carlos Fosca
Pontificia Universidad Católica
Perú
David Gago
CSEV
Spain
Denis Gillet
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de
Lausanne
Switzerland
Christian Guetl
Graz University of Technology
Austria/Australia
Rocael Hernández Rizzardini
Universidad Galileo
Guatemala
Lung Hsiang Wong
National Institute of Education
Singapore
Mohamed JEMNI
University of Tunis
Tunisia
Paul Kim
Stanford University
United States
Eric Klopfer
MIT
United States
Vijay Kumar
MIT
United States/India
Deborah Lee
Mississippi State University
United States
Phil Long
University of Queensland
Australia
David Lowe
The University of Sydney
Australia
Holly Ludgate
NMC
United States
Akinori Nishihara
Tokio Tech
Japan
Nick Noakes
The Hong Kong University of Science
and Technology
Hong Kong
Hiroaki Ogata
University of Tokushima
Japan
Sarah Porter
JISC
United Kingdom
Shirley Reushle
University of Southern Queensland
Australia
Ed Rodley
Museum of Science
United States
Salvador Ros
UNED
Spain
Jaime Sanchez
Universidad de Chile
Chile
Kari Stubbs
BrainPOP
United States
Linmi Tao
Tsinghua University
China
Jim Vanides
HP
United States
Antonio Vantaggiato
Universidad del Sagrado Corazón
Puerto Rico
Kristina Woolsey
Exploratorium
United States
doc_117141930.pdf
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Education Society (IEEE) to inform educational leaders about significant developments in technologies supporting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education.
The Technology Outlook for STEM+ Education 2012-2017
An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis
is a collaboration between
The NEW MEDIA CONSORTIUM
and
The Centro Superior para la Enseñanza Virtual (CSEV),
Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Control
at The Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), and
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Education Society (IEEE)
The project was made possible by a grant from the Centro Superior para la Enseñanza Virtual
(CSEV), whose generous support is very much appreciated.
© 2012, The New Media Consortium.
Creative Commons License
Permission is granted under a Creative Commons Attribution License to replicate, copy, distribute, transmit,
or adapt this report freely provided that attribution is provided as illustrated in the citation below.
To view a copy of this license, visithttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative
Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
Citation
Johnson, L., Adams, S., Cummins, M., and Estrada, V. (2012). Technology Outlook for STEM+ Education 2012-
2017: An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.
ISBN 978-0-9846601-8-6
An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis
Technology Outlook for STEM+ Education 2012-2017
An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis
Executive Summary .................................................................................................................................................................................... 1
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less
! Cloud Computing .............................................................................................................................................. 5
! Collaborative Environments ......................................................................................................................... 6
! Mobile Apps........................................................................................................................................................... 7
! Social Networking ............................................................................................................................................. 8
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years
! Augmented Reality ........................................................................................................................................... 9
! Learning Analytics .......................................................................................................................................... 10
! Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) .......................................................................................... 11
! Personal Learning Environments ............................................................................................................ 12
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years
! Collective Intelligence .................................................................................................................................. 13
! The Internet of Things .................................................................................................................................. 14
! Natural User Interfaces (NUIs) .................................................................................................................. 15
! Wearable Technology ........................................................................................................................ 16
Top Ten Trends .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 17
Top Ten Challenges ................................................................................................................................................................................. 19
Methodology .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 21
2012 Horizon Project STEM+ Advisory Board ..................................................................................................... 23
Executive Summary
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 1
Executive Summary
The Technology Outlook for STEM+ Education 2012-2017 reflects a collaborative effort between the
New Media Consortium (NMC), the Centro Superior para la Enseñanza Virtual (CSEV),
Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Control at the Universidad Nacional de
Educación a Distancia (UNED), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Education
Society (IEEE) to inform educational leaders about significant developments in technologies
supporting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. The addition of the “+”
in the acronym, as used here, incorporates communication and digital media technologies in the
traditional four areas of study.
The research underpinning the report makes use of the NMC’s Delphi-based process for bringing
groups of experts to a consensus viewpoint, in this case around the impact of emerging
technologies on teaching, learning, or research in STEM+ education over the next five years. The
same process underlies the well-known NMC Horizon Report series, which is the most visible
product of an on-going research effort begun a decade ago to systematically identify and describe
emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on education around the globe.
The Technology Outlook for STEM+ Education 2012-2017 was produced to explore emerging
technologies and forecast their potential impact expressly in a STEM+ context. In the effort that
ran from July through September 2012, the carefully selected group of 46 experts who
contributed to this report considered hundreds of relevant articles, news, blog posts, research, and
project examples as part of the preparation that ultimately pinpointed the most notable emerging
technology topics, trends, and challenges for STEM+ education over the next five years.
That group of experts, known as the 2012 Horizon Project STEM+ Advisory Board, is comprised of
notably knowledgeable individuals, all highly regarded in their fields. Collectively the advisory
board represents a range of diverse perspectives across the STEM+ learning sector. The project has
been conducted under an open data philosophy, and all the interim projects, secondary research,
discussions, and ranking instrumentation can be viewed at stem.wiki.nmc.org. The precise
research methodology employed in producing the report is detailed in a special section found at
the end of this report.
The 12 “technologies to watch” presented in the body of this report reflect our experts’ opinions as
to which of the nearly 60 technologies considered will be most important to STEM+ education
over the five years following the publication of the report. As the table below illustrates, the
choices of our STEM+ experts overlap in interesting ways with those who contributed to the
globally focused NMC Horizon Report > 2012 Higher Education Edition and the NMC Horizon Report >
2012 K-12 Edition. All three of these projects’ advisory boards — a group of 139 acknowledged
experts — agree that cloud computing and mobile apps will likely tip into mainstream use within
the next year, a trend that spans all of education across much of the world. All three advisory
boards saw learning analytics as an emerging science that would be making its way into schools
and universities in the mid-term horizon. All also agreed that natural user interfaces are redefining
how we think about and use our devices, with even the timeframe agreed upon by these three
distinct groups of experts.
There are many interesting overlaps between the opinions of our STEM+ experts and the K-12
experts whose contributions were published in June 2012. Cloud computing, collaborative
environments, and mobile apps were all on the near-term horizon for both reports; likewise,
learning analytics and personal learning environments on the mid-term horizon; and natural user
interfaces on the far-term horizon. The 93 experts from both the STEM+ and the Global Higher
Education advisory boards were of like mind that the Internet of Things is four to five years away.
Executive Summary
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 2
Comparison of “Short List” Topics Across Three NMC Horizon Research Projects
Technology Outlook for
STEM+ Education 2012-2017
NMC Horizon Report
2012 Higher Education Edition
NMC Horizon Report
2012 K-12 Edition
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less
Cloud Computing Cloud Computing Cloud Computing
Collaborative Environments Mobile Apps Collaborative Environments
Mobile Apps Social Reading Mobiles and Apps
Social Networking Tablet Computing Tablet Computing
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years
Augmented Reality Adaptive Learning Environments Digital Identity
Learning Analytics Augmented Reality Game-Based Learning
Massively Open Online Courses Game-Based Learning Learning Analytics
Personal Learning Environments Learning Analytics Personal Learning Environments
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years
Collective Intelligence Digital Identity Augmented Reality
Internet of Things Natural User Interfaces Natural User Interfaces
Natural User Interfaces Haptic Interfaces Semantic Applications
Wearable Technology Internet of Things Assessment of 21
st
Century Skills
At the same time, there were a number of distinct choices made by the STEM+ advisory board:
collective intelligence, massively open online courses, social networking, and wearable technology
were all considered by recent panels, but did not rise to the top of those rankings as they did here.
Wearable technology has been submitted as a potential topic for several of the most recent
rounds of Horizon Project research, but this is the first time it has risen to the list of finalists, and is
a brand new topic this year that should be interesting to watch as it evolves.
A growing number of key universities are looking to MOOCs as a growth medium for courses in
computer science, electrical engineering, physics, and more to broader audiences. Many STEM-
focused institutions are looking to open — often free — online universities to supplement the
current courses at brick-and-mortar institutions.
Top Ranked Trends Across Three NMC Horizon Research Projects
Technology Outlook for
STEM+ Education 2012-2017
NMC Horizon Report
2012 Higher Education Edition
NMC Horizon Report
2012 K-12 Edition
Teaching paradigms across all
sectors are shifting to include
online learning, hybrid learning
and collaborative models.
People expect to be able to work,
learn, and study whenever and
wherever they want.
Paradigms in K-12 teaching are
shifting to include online
learning, hybrid learning and
collaborative models.
Massively Open Online Courses
(MOOCs) are proliferating in STEM
areas.
The technologies we use are
increasingly cloud-based, and our
notions of IT support are
decentralized.
The abundance of resources and
relationships made easily
accessible via the Internet is
increasingly challenging us to
revisit our roles as educators.
The abundance of resources and
relationships made easily
accessible via the Internet is
increasingly challenging us to
revisit our roles as educators.
The world of work is increasingly
collaborative, driving changes in
the way student projects are
structured.
As the cost of technology drops
and school districts revise and
open up their access policies, it is
becoming increasingly common
for students to bring their own
mobile devices.
Just as the nuances of the technologies and their associated adoption horizons featured in this
report are specific to STEM+ education, even if there are commonalities with other reports, the
Executive Summary
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 3
trends and challenges selected by the STEM+ advisory board distinctly reflect the current drivers
and obstacles facing STEM+ education in the coming five years. For example, the advisory board
agreed that the interest in massively open online courses is a trend that many world-class
universities are responding to by designing open programming courses, engineering courses, and
more. The experts spent a fair amount of time researching and discussing relevant trends and
challenges in the context of STEM+ teaching and learning. A full discussion of trends and
challenges identified by the advisory board begins on page 17; the top three from those longer
lists are included in the tables in this section.
The 46 STEM+ experts saw doors opening in STEM fields to more — and more diverse — online
learning opportunities, and more use of online collaboration tools. Additionally there is a growing
recognition within these disciplines that the quality of the course’s content should be
independent of the devices used to access that content.
Horizon Project advisory boards in general have agreed that trends like these and the full list on
page 17 are clear drivers of technology adoption; the STEM+ group especially saw such a linkage.
At the same time, these panels of experts also agree that technology adoption can be and often is
hindered by challenges both local and systemic. Many challenges impacting technology uptake
are grounded in everyday realities that often make it difficult to learn about, much less adopt, new
tools and approaches. Economic pressures, for example, continue to dominate conversations
about the acceptance of technology in education worldwide; the challenges facing STEM+
programs also include an economic component.
Top Ranked Challenges Across Three NMC Horizon Research Projects
Technology Outlook for
STEM+ Education 2012-2017
NMC Horizon Report
2012 Higher Education Edition
NMC Horizon Report
2012 K-12 Edition
Economic pressures and new
models of education are bringing
unprecedented competition to
the traditional models of higher
education.
Economic pressures and new
models of education are bringing
unprecedented competition to
the traditional models of tertiary
education.
Digital media literacy continues
its rise in importance as a key skill
in every discipline and profession.
Digital media literacy continues
its rise in importance as a key skill
in every discipline and profession.
Appropriate metrics of evaluation
lag behind the emergence of new
scholarly forms of authoring,
publishing, and researching.
K-12 must address the increased
blending of formal and informal
learning.
The demand for personalized
learning is not adequately
supported by current technology
or practices.
Digital media literacy continues
its rise in importance as a key skill
in every discipline and profession.
The demand for personalized
learning is not adequately
supported by current technology
or practices.
All three advisory boards agreed that digital media literacy is continuing its rise in importance as a
key skill in every discipline and profession. The challenge embedded in this long-term trend is that
this change is taking place more rapidly in the workplace than in undergraduate and graduate
training, and too often, in service professional development does not include skill building in
communication and digital media techniques. Nonetheless, many on the STEM+ advisory board
underscored the importance of these skills in science, technology, engineering, and math and
called for more systemic training in techniques like animation and video that can be very effective
aids to both understanding and articulating complex ideas and solutions.
Both the K-12 panel and the STEM+ panel noted that personalized learning is not adequately
supported by current teaching technology or formal learning practice; at the same time, informal
Executive Summary
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 4
learning is a space richly populated with clever apps and engaging, discovery-based learning
experiences. There is a consensus that STEM+ programs are by and large not keeping up with
pedagogical models that encourage students to take ownership over their own learning, develop
their own learning strategies, and even manage the pace of their learning. It is critical for
educators in STEM+ fields and beyond to build and participate in networks where they can share
pedagogical research and best practices.
These points and comparisons provide an important context for the main body of the report that
follows this summary. There, twelve key technologies are profiled, each on a single page that
describes and defines a technology ranked as very important for STEM+ education over the next
year, two to three years, and four to five years. Each of these pages opens with a carefully crafted
definition of the highlighted technology, outlines its educational relevance, points to several real
life examples of its current use on campuses or in educational practice, and ends with a short list of
additional readings for those who wish to learn more. Following those discussions are sections
that detail the STEM+ advisory board’s ten top-most ranked trends and challenges and articulate
why they are seen as highly influential factors in the adoption of any of these technologies over
the coming five years.
Those key sections, and this report in general, constitute a reference and straightforward
technology-planning guide for educators, researchers, administrators, policymakers, and
technologists. It is our hope that this research will help to inform the choices that institutions are
making about technology to improve, support, or extend teaching, learning, or research in STEM+
education. Educators and administrators worldwide look to the NMC Horizon Project and both its
global and regional reports as key strategic technology planning references, and it is for that
purpose that the report is presented.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 5
Time-to-Adoption: One Year or Less
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing refers to expandable, on-demand services and tools that are served to the user
via the Internet from a specialized data center. Cloud computing resources support collaboration,
file storage, virtualization, and access to computing cycles, and the number of available
applications that rely on cloud technologies have grown to the point that few institutions do not
make some use of the cloud, whether as a matter of policy or not. Cloud computing has come to
play an increasingly indispensable role in the utility of the many devices people use in everyday
life. Whether connecting at home, work, school, on the road, or in social spaces, nearly everyone
who uses the network relies on cloud computing to access or extend their information and
applications. As cloud computing has become ever more important, questions related to privacy,
data security, and even sovereignty have led to the development of private clouds. Recently,
hybrid clouds have been custom-designed to meet specialized security or other critical needs that
a commodity cloud cannot.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! Cloud-based collaboration tools allow STEM students to engage problems as teams, to
interact and brainstorm solutions easily, and to craft reports and presentations; often, the
very same tools can be used to support both global and local collaboration.
! Grid computing approaches allow cloud-based servers to be organized in ways that
greatly increase researchers’ ability to work with very large data sets, almost on demand,
increasing both the capacity and efficiency of institutional resources as needed.
! Using virtual machines in the cloud, computer science programs are able to simulate
virtually any computer, from historical machines to the latest modern super computers.
Cloud Computing in Practice
! The Gaia Research for European Astronomy Training - Initial Training Network is a program
where graduate students are exploring simulated data in the Gaia Universe Model
Snapshot — a dataset of 1.6 billion stars stored in Amazon EC2 Cloud: go.nmc.org/pitay.
! Internet2, in partnership with 16 major technology companies, including HP and Adobe,
launched NET+, a suite of specialized cloud services aimed at member universities across
the United States: go.nmc.org/ynnur.
! Swinburne University is exploring how private cloud computing can be an effective
vehicle for scientific workflows and data storage: go.nmc.org/swinb.
For Further Reading
Cloud Computing and Creativity: Learning on a Massively Open Online Course
go.nmc.org/clomoo
(Rita Kop and Fiona Carroll, European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, 20
December 2011.) This paper discusses how cloud computing can be leveraged to support
collaborative learning, specifically in massively open online courses.
Cloud Computing for the Poorest Countries
go.nmc.org/qulhg
(Quentin Hardy, New York Times, 29 August 2012.) Developing countries are gaining access
to cloud services through battery-operated phones and servers stationed in California.
Using the Cloud to be a Better Student
go.nmc.org/vempn
(Justin Marquis, Online Universities, 7 May 2012.) This article lists some of the many resources
available via the cloud to university students and others, from free textbooks, to document
creation and storage, to collaboration support.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 6
Time-to-Adoption: One Year or Less
Collaborative Environments
Collaborative environments are online spaces — often cloud-based — where the focus is on
making it easy to collaborate and work in groups, no matter where the participants may be. As the
typical educator’s 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 nonetheless collaborate on projects. Joint classroom-
based projects with students at other schools or in other countries are more and more
commonplace as strategies to expose learners to a variety of perspectives. The essential attribute
of the technologies in this set is that they make it easy for people to share interests and ideas, to
easily monitor their collective progress, and to see how ideas have evolved throughout the
process. These tools are compelling and widely adopted because they are not only easy to use, but
they are also either very low cost or free, and often accessible with a simple web browser.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! Federated experiments by nature benefit from the use of collaborative environments,
where researchers can easily share virtual lab books, common protocols, or critical
settings.
! Simple, easy-to-use, and often free video conferencing tools, such as Skype, make it easy
to involve colleagues or outside experts in discussions related to STEM topics of all kinds.
! Team-based learning situations, increasingly common in STEM-based learning, are greatly
enhanced with tools that allow teams to brainstorm, jointly record observations, generate
solutions, and prepare findings for dissemination.
Collaborative Environments in Practice
! The Kentucky Girls STEM Collaborative Project brings together organizations and
programs that are committed to informing and motivating young women to pursue
careers in STEM: go.nmc.org/ocrpm.
! Polymath is a collaborative space where mathematical quandaries are discussed openly
between contributing mathematicians: go.nmc.org/osiqp.
! The Technical University of Loja in Ecuador is building an e-learning platform to analyze
collaborative learning mediated by social web tools: go.nmc.org/rjpuf.
! The University Synapse project aims to create an environment that establishes
connections between academia, business, and research: go.nmc.org/heuho.
For Further Reading
Collaborative Learning Environments Sourcebook
go.nmc.org/bkjvl
(CriticalMethods.org; accessed 3 September 2012.) This online book describes and
provides links to a wide variety of collaboration resources and tools.
Creating an e-science Collaborative Environment for Neurophysiology (Video)
go.nmc.org/vcqqe
(Colin Ingram, University of Newcastle, Neuroinformatics Lecture, 23 November 2010.)
Cloud services can be used to create collaborative environments for learning and sharing
content in the subject of neurophysiology.
Learning Reimagined: Participatory, Peer, Global, Online
go.nmc.org/xshrq
(Howard Rheingold, DMLCentral, 22 July 2011.) This article addresses the implications of
using open educational resources to influence the pedagogy behind self-organizing peer
learning groups.
!"#$%&'&()"* ,& -.,#$
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 7
Time-to-Adoption: One Year or Less
Mobile Apps
There is a revolution that is taking place in software development that parallels the changes in
recent years in the music, publishing, and retail industries. Mass market is giving way to niche
market, and with it, the era of highly priced large suites of integrated software is giving way to a
new view of what software should be. Smartphones such as the Galaxy, iPhone, and Android have
redefined what we mean by mobile computing, and in the past three to four years, the small, often
simple, low-cost software extensions to these devices — apps — have become a hotbed of
development. New tools are free or sell for as little as 99 cents in the US, making it easier for
people — even students — to develop apps. A popular app can see millions of downloads in a
short time, and that potential market has spawned a flood of creativity that is instantly apparent in
the extensive collections available in the app stores. These retail phenomena provide an easy, fast,
totally new way to deliver software that reduces distribution and marketing costs significantly.
Apple’s app store opened in July 2008; Google’s followed in October of that year, and since then,
literally billions of apps have been sold or downloaded; simple but useful apps have found their
way into almost every form of human endeavor. Mobile apps are particularly useful in education as
they enable students to learn and experience new concepts wherever they are, often across
multiple devices.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! As interactive and social features become more integrated into mobile apps, scientists can
share their findings, making the app an ever-growing repository of information.
! Mobile apps provide STEM+ students with learning experiences and practice activities,
from animal dissection apps to 3D views of the periodic table.
! Students are becoming more interested in STEM+ subjects as mobile app programming
becomes an in-demand skill.
Mobile Apps in Practice
! BrainPOP offers an assortment of apps that engage students in STEM learning:
go.nmc.org/upusu.
! Engineering students at the University of New South Wales used the “Rubrik” app to help
them collect real-time data in a marketing design project competition: go.nmc.org/rubrik.
! In place of textbooks, the Duke Marine Lab developed a mobile app to teach an
undergraduate biology course about marine megafauna: go.nmc.org/uffmi.
! The Spanish IEEC/UNED iPhone app contains a digital electronics module and a virtual lab
that shows what happens inside of a MC68000 microprocessor when a program is
executed: go.nmc.org/rvced.
For Further Reading
5 New Apps to Spur STEM Learning
go.nmc.org/oaqcf
(Stephen Noonoo, The Journal, 6 February 2012.) Mobile apps that are effective for STEM
learning include a human skeleton app and an interactive digital dinosaur encyclopedia.
Why Care About STEM? The Future of Mobile App Development
go.nmc.org/zkdal
(Sam Morris, Tablets at Work, 16 February 2012.) This article describes the potential of
mobile app development to promote STEM fields by engaging learners in project-based
learning and by showing real-world applications.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 8
Time-to-Adoption: One Year or Less
Social Networking
Social networking is about making connections and bringing people together. Conversations that
take place in social networking contexts are designed to be brief, often media rich, and always
inherently shareable. Communications are generally open (depending on privacy settings) and
easily added to by members of the network. Today’s typical students use social networking sites
extensively, and in the place of email and other more traditional forms of communication.
Relationships are the currency of these systems, and already we are seeing systems evolve in ways
that are changing the way we search for, work with, and understand information by placing
people at the center of the network. Social operating system tools, such as the analytics built into
Facebook, help users understand who members of their communities know, how they know them,
and how deep those relationships actually are. They can lead us to build new social connections
we would otherwise have missed. As opportunities for virtual collaboration increase, trust-based
networks that can interpret and evaluate the depth of a person’s social connections will become
increasingly indispensable.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! In place of traditional methods of communication, such as email, educators now share
assignments and alert students to schedule changes through sites such as Facebook and
Twitter. In turn, students can ask questions about assignments and receive timely
responses from their teachers and classmates.
! More higher education institutions are relying on social networks as a means of recruiting
students; social networks display videos and provide updates on compelling projects that
are taking place in university media labs.
! Social networks provide an easy medium for informal learning that meets students on the
web where they already are.
Social Networking in Practice
! Dow Chemical launched a program where their scientists are engaging in social networks
to develop relationships with students at top universities: go.nmc.org/lzeav.
! Duke University and Murdoch University constructed a social map which students use to
share observations about the ecosystems of Northwestern Australia: go.nmc.org/rljfg.
! Irkutsk State Technical University in Russia partnered with the Chinese University of
Geosciences to build a social learning platform called the Mobile Grid Platform for STEM
Subjects: go.nmc.org/bnqtf.
! Math Overflow is a community for mathematicians to post complex problems, contribute
feedback, and designate the most accurate answers through voting: go.nmc.org/mdzvx.
For Further Reading
Social Media and Engineers: Live with it, OK?
go.nmc.org/pfbyw
(Brian Fuller, EE Times, 22 February 2011.) This article contains examples of how engineers
are blogging, tweeting, and interacting with each other online.
Social Media in the Business of Higher Education
go.nmc.org/fxhpc
(James Michael Nolan, Huffington Post, 27 June 2012.) Social networking has enhanced
institutions’ strategies for recruitment, marketing, development, public relations, and
more.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 9
Time-to-Adoption: Two to Three Years
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality (AR), a capability that has been around for decades, has shifted from what was
once seen as a gimmick to a tool with tremendous potential. The layering of information over 3D
space produces a new experience of the world, sometimes referred to as “blended reality,” and is
fueling the broader migration of computing from the desktop to the mobile device, bringing with
it new expectations regarding access to information and new opportunities for learning. While the
most prevalent uses of augmented reality so far have been in the consumer sector (for marketing,
social engagement, amusement, or location-based information), new uses seem to emerge almost
daily, as tools for creating new applications become even easier to use. A key characteristic of
augmented reality is its ability to respond to user input. This interactivity confers significant
potential for learning and assessment; with it, students can construct new understanding based
on interactions with virtual objects that bring underlying data to life. Dynamic processes,
extensive datasets, and objects too large or too small to be manipulated can be brought into a
student’s personal space at a scale and in a form easy to understand and work with. A variation of
augmented reality is augmented virtuality, where virtual environments are augmented by
data/phenomena from the real world.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! Augmented reality constructs can provide contextual, in situ learning experiences that
foster exploration of real world data in virtual surroundings and simulations. For example,
Yale University constructed a virtual papermill that allowed student managers to
manipulate processes and judge the ecological impacts of their decisions.
! Games that are based in the real world and augmented with networked data can give
educators powerful new ways to show relationships and connections in computer science.
! Students doing outdoor fieldwork can access AR applications to overlay maps and
information about their surroundings, or to enter field observations and data that is
automatically geocoded as the records are created.
Augmented Reality in Practice
! At Super School University, educators and students from 34 countries are working as
scientists, using the island of Santa Luzia for a collaborative augmented reality project:
go.nmc.org/stem.
! Boise State University replaced their cadaver lab with an augmented reality tool that
provides real-time 3D modeling of the human anatomy: go.nmc.org/latju.
! Microsoft partnered with University of Washington to develop augmented reality contact
lenses that measure glucose levels of a wearer: go.nmc.org/ixjhf.
! The University of Exeter in the UK built an augmented reality mobile app that transforms
the campus into a living lab, where users can view scientific data about their surroundings:
go.nmc.org/llvuv.
For Further Reading
Augmented Reality for Chemists (Video)
go.nmc.org/augm
(Art Olson, Chemical & Engineering News, 19 September 2011.) This video demonstrates
how AR is built, using a webcam that tracks the motions of a 3D model of a chemical.
Google’s ‘Project Glass’ Augmented Reality Glasses Are Real And In Testing
go.nmc.org/glass
(Chris Velazco, Tech Crunch, 4 April 2012.) Google developed an AR glasses model that will allow
users to take photos on command, display the location of nearby friends, and more.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 10
Time-to-Adoption: Two to Three Years
Learning Analytics
Learning analytics refers to the interpretation of a wide range of data produced by and gathered
on behalf of students to assess academic progress, predict future performance, and spot potential
issues. Data are collected from explicit student actions, such as completing assignments and
taking exams, and from tacit actions, including online social interactions, extracurricular activities,
posts on discussion forums, and other activities that are not typically viewed as part of a student’s
work. The goal of learning analytics is to enable teachers and schools to tailor educational
opportunities to each student’s level of need and ability. Learning analytics promises to harness
the power of advances in data mining, interpretation, and modeling to improve understanding of
teaching and learning, and tailor education to individual students more effectively. Still in its very
early stages, learning analytics is an emerging scientific practice that hopes to redefine what we
know about learning by mining and investigating the vast amount of data produced by students
as they engage in academic activities.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! As the need for more authentic assessment in STEM subjects increases, learning analytics
help educators measure students’ concept mastery across a multitude of formats.
! If used effectively, learning analytics can help surface early signals that indicate a student is
struggling, allowing faculty and teaching staff to address issues quickly.
! Learning analytics draws pattern matching and analysis techniques from sciences like fluid
dynamics and petroleum engineering.
Learning Analytics in Practice
! In a pilot project at the University of Kentucky, learning analytics was used to measure and
improve collaborative writing for computer science students: go.nmc.org/xzifk.
! Learning analytics was used at the Graduate School of Medicine at the University of
Wollongong to help design a new curriculum with a clinical focus: go.nmc.org/zgxnk.
! The University of Canterbury in New Zealand is using a learning analytics platform called
LearnTrak to increase student retention: go.nmc.org/oipzz.
! The University of Michigan is leveraging learning management systems to monitor
student learning in the field of engineering: go.nmc.org/peqjm.
For Further Reading
Data Mining and Online Learning
go.nmc.org/nyhsn
(Jim Shimabukuro, Educational Technology & Change Journal, 7 August 2011.) The author
helps educators incorporate learning analytics into their daily workflows.
Exploring the Khan Academy’s use of Learning Data and Learning Analytics
go.nmc.org/rttpc
(K. Walsh, Emerging EdTech22, April 2012.) The Khan Academy created a “Teacher Toolkit,”
which includes graphic reports to help teachers personalize the learning process.
Learning Analytics: The Coming Third Wave
go.nmc.org/mknvy
(Malcolm Brown, EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, April 2011.) Third-party learning analytics
applications are beginning to make the tools more cost-effective.
Learning and Knowledge Analytics
go.nmc.org/igyjh
(George Siemens; accessed 3 September 2012.) Renowned learning analytics expert
George Siemens frequently updates this website with his insights on the topic, from
keynotes to presentations, to blog posts.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 11
Time-to-Adoption: Two to Three Years
Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
Coined in 2008 by Stephen Downes and George Siemens, the term “massively open online
courses,” or MOOCs, refers to online courses that people can take from anywhere across the world.
Such classes attract both novices and professionals, and in the best examples, lines between
instructor and student roles are intentionally blurred. Early examples, such as EdX and Coursera,
have attracted tens of thousands of participants who contribute to both the materials and
organization of the course. The basis of each MOOC is an expansive and diverse set of content,
contributed by a variety of experts, educators, and instructors in a specific field. What makes this
content set especially unique is that it is by design a “remix” — the materials are not necessarily
designed to go together but become associated with each other through the MOOC. A key
component of the original vision is that all course materials and the course itself are both open
source and free — with the door left open for a fee if a participant taking the course wishes
university credit to be transcripted for the work. A second key element is that the structure of
MOOCs be minimalist, so as to allow participants to design their own learning path based upon
whatever specific knowledge or skill they want to gain. The point is that participants can control
how, where, when, and even what they learn.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! MOOCs fill a large gap for many who simply want to participate in rich learning
opportunities without the need to be admitted to a course of study or applying to a
particular institution.
! Professionals who enroll in MOOCs to further their own learning can also contribute to the
learning of others via mentor roles, or even as part of the teaching team.
! When more learners and institutions participate in MOOCs by sharing scientific research
and other content, it leads to sustainability of the MOOC ecosystem over time.
Massively Open Online Courses in Practice
! The Centro Superior para la Enseñanza Virtual (CSEV) is encouraging MOOC enrollment to
Latin American communities through an agreement with MIT to offer MOOCs in Spanish:
go.nmc.org/gyorb.
! Coursera, a start-up by two Stanford University professors, is offering over 30 free online
classes, including science fiction and health policy. A "calibrated peer-review" system is
currently in the works: go.nmc.org/course.
! The Open University of Australia is an online university with a collection of courses and
units provided by reputable universities around the continent: go.nmc.org/openu.
For Further Reading
Disruptive Innovation — in Education
go.nmc.org/disrup
(Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office, 20 April 2012.) Learn how student interaction in the
community forums of MITx has created an unpredictably advantageous learning
experience.
What You Need to Know About MOOC's
go.nmc.org/wdnxj
(The Chronicle of Higher Education, accessed 27 August 2012.) The Chronicle discusses the
major players in the MOOC movement and brings together the varying opinions on the
impact of these courses.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 12
Time-to-Adoption: Two to Three Years
Personal Learning Environments
Personal learning environments (PLEs) are a loosely defined term used to describe tools that
support self-directed and group-based learning, focus on individual learning goals and needs,
with great capacity for flexibility and customization. The term has been evolving for some time,
but has crystalized recently around the personal collections of tools and resources a person
assembles to support their own learning — both formal and informal. The conceptual basis for
PLEs has shifted significantly in the last two years, as smartphones, tablets, and apps have begun
to emerge as compelling alternatives to browser-based PLEs and e-portfolios. There has been a
corresponding move away from centralized, server-based solutions to distributed and portable
ones. Using a growing set of free and simple tools and applications, or even a personally
assembled collection of apps on a tablet, it is already easy to support one’s ongoing social,
professional, and learning activities with a handy collection of resources and tools that are always
with you. While the concept of PLEs is still fairly fluid, it is clear that a PLE is not simply a
technology but an approach or process that is individualized by design, and thus different from
person to person.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! Abstracts, key papers, and other research materials are easy to store in the libraries of
current smartphones and tablets; course readings can easily be added to these libraries.
! As students progress through their courses of study, their PLEs grow in sophistication as
well as utility.
! PLEs provide a framework for STEM students to assemble collections of reference
materials, specialized calculators, and tools that are easily at hand.
Personal Learning Environments in Practice
! “Innovative Technologies for an Engaging Classroom” is a pan-European project that joins
policy-makers with educators to develop scalable learning environments: go.nmc.org/itec.
! Sabana University in Columbia conducted a case study on the use of personal learning
environments as a platform for a master's course: go.nmc.org/luaho.
! Waukesha STEM Academy uses personalized and blended learning strategies to empower
students to take ownership of their learning style and pace: go.nmc.org/socyf.
For Further Reading
27 Places to Get a Free Science Education
go.nmc.org/rsfwj
(Citizen Science Center, 11 August 2012.) This is a collection of online resources for studying
science topics that allow users to self-pace their studies.
Preparing Students to Learn Without Us
go.nmc.org/prepar
(Will Richardson, ASCD Educational Leadership, February 2012.) As our culture increasingly
emphasizes customization many education models are becoming more individually
focused.
This Time It’s Personal
go.nmc.org/person
(Jennifer Demski, The Journal, 4 January 2012.) This article emphasizes the crucial role of
changing the current classroom infrastructure to make it more student-centered in order
to incorporate technology in a transformative way.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 13
Time-to-Adoption: Four to Five Years
Collective Intelligence
Collective intelligence is a term for the knowledge embedded within societies or large groups of
individuals. It can be explicit, in the form of knowledge gathered and recorded by many people.
The tacit intelligence that results from the data generated by the activities of many people over
time is extremely powerful. Google uses such data to continuously refine its search and ad results.
Discovering and harnessing the intelligence in such data — revealed through analyses of patterns,
correlations, and flows — is enabling ever more accurate predictions about people’s preferences
and behaviors, and helping researchers and everyday users understand and map relationships,
and gauge the relative significance of ideas and events. Two new forms of information stores are
being created in real time by thousands of people in the course of their daily activities, some
explicitly collaborating to create collective knowledge stores, some contributing implicitly
through the patterns of their choices and actions. The data in these new information stores has
come to be called collective intelligence, and both forms have already proven to be compelling
applications of the network. Explicit knowledge stores refine knowledge through the
contributions of thousands of authors; implicit stores allow the discovery of entirely new
knowledge by capturing trillions of key clicks and decisions as people use the network in the
course of their everyday lives.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! Collective intelligence is embedded in scientific research networks. Data mining tools
provide both a way to search for patterns and insights as well as to illustrate the topic.
! Professional networks provide an avenue for STEM professionals to make instant updates
to research and topics, absent the inherent time constraints involved in updating a
traditional paper.
! The study of tacit knowledge stores such as usage or traffic patterns, user interactions, and
similar large datasets often leads to unexpected insights.
Collective Intelligence in Practice
! ChemSpider, developed by the Royal Society of Chemistry, is a free database for chemical
structures, gathering research from across the web into a single repository:
go.nmc.org/zuvpk.
! The Khan Academy is a vast but highly curated collection of videos that supplement
school curriculum: go.nmc.org/jlwbj.
! The National Archives partnered with Wikipedia on the Wikipedians-in-Residence
program, where volunteer experts publicly document the history of cultural institutions:
go.nmc.org/wsgub.
For Further Reading
Crowd Computing and Human Computation Algorithms at Collective Intelligence (video)
go.nmc.org/yptvv
(Rob Miller, 2012 Collective Intelligence Conference.) In an event sponsored by the
National Science Foundation, a researcher explores the infrastructures of collective
intelligence.
Interview with Pierre Lévy on Collective Intelligence Literacy
go.nmc.org/smzwz
(Pierre Lévy, Flat Classroom, 20 October 2011.) A media scholar discusses collective intelligence in
the context of new media and digital networks, and the skills and philosophies people need to
contribute to the conversation.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 14
Time-to-Adoption: Four to Five Years
The Internet of Things
The Internet of Things has become a sort of shorthand for network-aware smart objects that
connect the physical world with the world of information. A smart object has four key attributes: it
is small, and thus easy to attach to almost anything; it has a unique identifier; it has a small store of
data or information; and it has a way to communicate that information to an external device on
demand. The Internet of Things extends that concept by using TCP/IP as the means to convey the
information, thus making objects addressable (and findable) on the Internet. Objects that carry
information with them have long been used for the monitoring of sensitive equipment or
materials, point-of-sale purchases, passport tracking, inventory management, identification, and
similar applications. Smart objects are the next generation of those technologies — they “know”
about a certain kind of information, such as cost, age, temperature, color, pressure, or humidity —
and can pass that information along easily and instantly upon electronic request. They are ideal for
digital management of physical objects, monitoring their status, tracking them throughout their
lifespan, alerting someone when they are in danger of being damaged or spoiled — or even
annotating them with descriptions, instructions, warranties, tutorials, photographs, connections to
other objects, and any other kind of contextual information imaginable. The Internet of Things
would make access to these data as easy as it is to use the web.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! Attached to scientific samples, TCP/IP-enabled smart objects already are alerting scientists
and researchers to conditions that may impair the quality or utility of the samples.
! Pill-shaped microcameras are used in medical diagnostics and teaching to traverse the
human digestive tract and send back thousands of images to pinpoint sources of illness.
! TCP/IP enabled sensors and information stores make it possible for geology and
anthropology departments to monitor or share the status and history of even the tiniest
artifact in their collections of specimens from anywhere to anyone with an Internet
connection.
Internet of Things in Practice
! Cosm is a platform that connects devices and apps so they can store and exchange data.
Developers are using it to create their own smart products: go.nmc.org/kzhep.
! In Rio de Janeiro, scientists are deploying ground and airborne smart sensors to predict
heavy rains and mudslides up to 48 hours in advance: go.nmc.org/mzytn.
! MIT’s Amarino is a toolkit that allows smartphone users to control the lights in a room and
detect exposure levels to potentially harmful environmental factors: go.nmc.org/uyllx.
For Further Reading
Futurist's Cheat Sheet: Internet of Things
go.nmc.org/cpfez
(Dan Rowinski, Read Write Web, 31 August 2012.) The author explores a world where
objects have their own IP addresses and communicate with each other via WiFi or cellular
networks.
How the "Internet of Things" Is Turning Cities Into Living Organisms
go.nmc.org/cxmqs
(Christopher Mims, Scientific American, 6 December 2011.) If city systems are able to react
to information stored in the cloud, they can respond to new environmental conditions.
The Internet Gets Physical
go.nmc.org/yirhc
(Steve Lohr, The New York Times, 17 December 2011.) Smart devices are linking humans to
their environment in ways that will benefit energy conservation, health care, and more.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 15
Time-to-Adoption: Four to Five Year
Natural User Interfaces (NUIs)
It is already common to interact with a new class of devices entirely by using natural movements
and gestures. Smart phones, tablets, game consoles, and the new class of “smart TVs” are part of a
growing list of other devices built with natural user interfaces that accept input in the form of taps,
swipes, and other ways of touching; hand and arm motions; body movement; and increasingly,
natural language. These are the first in a growing array of alternative input devices that allow
computers to recognize and interpret natural physical gestures as a means of control. Natural user
interfaces allow users to engage in virtual activities with movements similar to what they would
use in the real world, manipulating content intuitively. The idea of being able to have a completely
natural interaction with your device is not new, but neither has its full potential been realised.
What makes natural user interfaces (NUIs) especially interesting is the burgeoning high fidelity of
systems that understand gestures, facial expressions, and their nuances, as well as the
convergence of gesture-sensing technology with voice recognition, which allows users to interact
in an almost natural fashion, with gesture, expression, and voice communicating their intentions
to devices.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! As the ability of NUIs to read subtle changes in facial expressions and user reactions
improves, STEM software will be able to “sense” when a student is struggling or frustrated
with material.
! Medical students increasingly rely on simulators employing natural user interfaces to
practice precise manipulations, such as catheter insertions, that would be far less
productive if they had to try to simulate sensitive movements with a mouse and keyboard.
! NUIs make devices seem easier to use and more accessible; interactions are far more
intuitive, which promotes exploration and engagement.
Natural User Interfaces in Practice
! A mechanical engineering team at Purdue University created Handy-Potter, a natural user
interface that can modify and create shapes in 3D based on hand gestures:
go.nmc.org/whfhc.
! The Norrköping Visualization Center and the Center for Medical Image Science and
Visualization has developed a way for detailed CT scans to be manipulated with gestures,
allowing medical students and forensic scientists to refine their autopsy and dissection
techniques without needing an actual cadaver: go.nmc.org/autop.
! Students working in The Human Media Lab at Queen's University created the TeleHuman,
a 3D visualization of a person based on Microsoft Kinect sensor technology:
go.nmc.org/aluov.
For Further Reading
The Human Voice, as Game Changer
go.nmc.org/voice
(Natasha Singer, The New York Times, 31 March 2012.) This article paints a picture of how
the voice-enabled future will materialize as we begin to interact in new ways with
everyday objects, such as refrigerators, thermostats, alarm systems, and other devices.
Natural User Interfaces
go.nmc.org/cvtqw
(Charles Xie, The Advanced Educational Modeling Laboratory, 21 August 2012.) The head of
the Mixed Reality Labs project funded by the National Science Foundation explains Natural
Learning Interfaces (NLI), natural user interfaces that allow users to interact with
simulations on a computer.
Technologies to Watch
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 16
Time-to-Adoption: Four to Five Years
Wearable Technology
Wearable technology refers to devices that can be worn by users, taking the form of an accessory
such as jewelry, sunglasses, a backpack, or even actual items of clothing like shoes or a jacket.
Often discreet, a person who comes into contact with someone wearing a device may not even
realize that the article of clothing is a piece of technology. The benefit of wearable technology is
that it can conveniently integrate tools, devices, power needs, and connectivity within a user’s
everyday life and movements. Google's Project Glass features one of the most talked about current
examples —the device resembles a pair of glasses but with a single lens. A user can literally see
information about their surroundings displayed in front of them, such as the names of friends who
are in close proximity, or nearby places to access data that would be relevant to a research project.
Wearable technology is still very new, but one can easily imagine accessories such as gloves that
enhance the user’s ability to feel or control something they are not directly touching. Wearable
technology already in the market includes clothing that charges batteries via decorative solar cells,
allows interactions with a user’s devices via sewn in controls or touch pads, or collects data on a
person's exercise regimen from sensors embedded in the heels of their shoes.
Relevance for Teaching and Learning in STEM+ Education
! Enabling technologies such as flexible screens or new forms of conducting materials or
insulators are natural research pathways for students interested in embedding devices or
their components into clothing.
! Smart jewelry or other accessories could alert wearers to hazardous conditions, such as
exposure to carbon monoxide.
! Wearable technology provides an engaging set of design and engineering challenges that
cuts across a wide range of STEM disciplines.
Wearable Technology in Practice
! Keyglove is a wireless, open-source input device a user wears over the hand to control
devices, enter data, play games, and manipulate 3D objects: go.nmc.org/fylwm.
! Researchers at the University of South Carolina converted the fibers of a t-shirt into
activated carbon to transform it into electrical storage capacity that can be used to keep
mobile devices charged: go.nmc.org/zscll.
! The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign designed a flexible circuit to enhance
surgical gloves and improve sensory response: go.nmc.org/hwcpj.
For Further Reading
Smart Couture: Wearable Tech Finds Its Fit
go.nmc.org/vhgnx
(David Zax, Fast Company, 15 August 2011.) The latest generation of wearable technology
is sleeker and more comfortable. This article provides several innovative examples.
Wearable Tech Market on the Upswing
go.nmc.org/fqpor
(Lucas Mearian, Computer World New Zealand, 27 August 2012.) This article describes
wearable devices that will be emerging for daily use allowing wearers to instantly access
personal data, including glasses and watches that collect and transmit health data.
Wearable Technology: a Vision of the Future?
go.nmc.org/sxgxs
(Charles Arthur, The Guardian, 18 July 2012.) Though tools such as smart glasses increase
our connectedness to our surroundings, they raise the privacy concerns that come with
wearing a device that records everything we see or do.
Top Ten Trends
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 17
Top Ten Trends
The technologies featured in the NMC Horizon Project are embedded within a contemporary
context that reflects the realities of the time, both in the sphere of education and in the world at
large. To assure this perspective, each advisory board researches, identifies, and ranks key trends
that are currently affecting the practice of teaching, learning, and research in education, and uses
these as a lens for its work in predicting the uptake of emerging technologies in whatever sector is
their focus.
These trends are surfaced through an extensive review of current articles, interviews, papers, and
new research. Once identified, the list of trends is ranked according to how significant an impact
they are likely to have on education in the next five years. The following trends have been
identified as key drivers of technology adoptions in STEM+ education for the period of 2012
through 2017; they are listed here in the order they were ranked by the advisory board.
1) Teaching paradigms across all sectors are shifting to include online learning, hybrid
learning, and much more teamwork and collaboration. Budget cuts have forced institutions to
re-evaluate their traditional approaches and find alternatives to seat-bound learning models. What
Horizon Project researchers began tracking several years ago as a challenge has morphed in this
climate into an increasingly interesting trend. Students already spend much of their free time on
the Internet. We are beginning to see developments in online learning that offer similar — and for
particular groups of students, even better — environments than physical campuses, and include
team tasks and digital skills. Hybrid models, which blend classroom and online experiences, are
often seen as the best of both worlds, and thus are emerging as an ever more common norm for
course design.
2) Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are proliferating, especially in STEM disciplines.
Led by the successful early experiments of world-class institutions (like MIT and Stanford), MOOCs
have captured the imagination of senior administrators and trustees like few other educational
innovations have. High profile offerings are being assembled under the banner of institutional
efforts like MITx, and large-scale collaborations like Coursera and the Code Academy. As the ideas
evolve, MOOCs are increasingly seen as a very intriguing alternative to credit-based instruction.
The prospect of a single course achieving enrollments in the tens of thousands is bringing serious
conversations on topics like micro-credit to the highest levels of institutional leadership.
3) The abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the Internet is
increasingly challenging us to revisit our roles as educators. Institutions must consider the
unique value that each adds to a world in which information is everywhere. In such a world, sense-
making and the ability to assess the credibility of information are paramount. Mentoring and
preparing students for the world in which they will live is again at the forefront. Higher education
institutions have always been seen as critical paths to educational credentialing, but challenges
from competing sources are redefining what these paths can look like.
4) People expect to be able to work, learn, and study whenever and wherever they want. This
trend is certainly true for most adults, and many well-paying jobs literally can be done from
anywhere that has a mobile Internet connection. It is also true for many of today’s school-age
children, who live their lives in a state of constant connection to their peers, social groups, and
family. The implications for formal learning are profound, as the flipped classroom uses the
resources on the Internet to free up valuable teacher classroom time, and fundamentally changes
the teacher-student relationship. When students know how to use their network connections for
more than texting, learning becomes much more serendipitous, opening the door to “just-in-time”
learning, and “discovered” learning.
Top Ten Trends
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 18
5) New pedagogical models are emerging that encourage a wide range of technologies and
tools to be imbedded seamlessly into the course design. In the traditional pattern, when a new
technology emerges, there is a period of time where it is studied as an independent variable to
find out its impact on learning outcomes. New pedagogies are emerging, however, in which
technologies play a supporting, rather than a central role, allowing much faster assessment of the
value of the tools employed. In these models, more basic ideas are central, such as 24/7 Internet
access for students, use of their personal devices, and considerable flexibility in the apps or
software applied to the learning goals.
6) Increasingly, students want to use their own technology for learning. As new technologies
are developed at a more rapid pace and at a higher quality, there is a wide variety of different
devices, gadgets, and tools from which to choose. Utilizing a specific device has become
something very personal — an extension of someone’s personality and learning style — for
example, the iPhone vs. the Android. There is comfort in giving a presentation or performing
research with tools that are more familiar and productive at the individual level. And, with
handheld technology becoming mass produced and more affordable, students are more likely to
have access to more advanced equipment in their personal lives than at school.
7) There is a new emphasis in the classroom on more challenge-based and active learning.
Challenge-based learning and similar methods foster more active learning experiences, both
inside and outside the classroom. As technologies such as tablets and smartphones now have
proven applications in schools, educators are leveraging these tools, which students already use,
to connect the curriculum with real life issues. The active learning approaches are decidedly more
student-centered, allowing them to take control of how they engage with a subject and to
brainstorm and implement solutions to pressing local and global problems. The hope is that if
learners can connect course material with their own lives and their surrounding communities,
then they will become more excited to learn and immerse themselves in the subject matter.
8) Educational games are increasingly being used to not only master STEM concepts, but
also apply and assess them. Games have proven benefits in engaging learners of all ages and
helping them better understand complex material. Taking that notion one step further,
simulations and game-based scenarios enable students to apply what they have learned in a
realistic environment and receive instant feedback. Game development is one of many strategies
employed in STEM environments, as it is inherently multi-disciplinary, requiring programming,
engineering, design, and other key skills to create a successful game.
9) Social media is changing the way people interact, present ideas and information, and
judge the quality of content and contributions. Nearly one billion people use Facebook
regularly; other social media platforms extend those numbers to nearly one third of all people on
the planet. Educators, students, alumni, and even the general public routinely use social media to
share news about scientific and other developments. Likewise, scientists and researchers use social
media to keep their communities informed of new developments. The fact that all of these various
groups are using social media speaks to its effectiveness in engaging people. The impact of these
changes in scholarly communication and on the credibility of information remains to be seen, but
it is clear that social media has found significant traction in almost every education sector.
10) Institutions are increasingly adopting tools and technologies that allow teachers and
students to better collaborate. Social networks and cloud-based tools and applications are
changing the ways teachers and students communicate with each other. Open resources such as
wikis and Google Apps enable the free exchange of ideas and prompt insightful discussions
between teachers and students. The result is more opportunities for collaboration, and what is
increasingly seen as a positive change in the dynamics of teacher-student relationships.
Top Ten Challenges
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 19
Top Ten Challenges
Along with the trends discussed in the preceding section, the advisory board noted a number of
important challenges faced by STEM+ educators. Like the trends, the ten challenges described
below were drawn from a careful analysis of current events, papers, articles, and similar sources, as
well as from the personal experience of the advisory board members in their roles as leaders in
education and technology. The ten challenges ranked as most significant in terms of their impact
on teaching, learning, or research in STEM+ education in the coming five years are listed here, in
the order of importance assigned them by the advisory board.
1) Economic pressures and new models of education are bringing unprecedented
competition to the traditional models of higher education. Across the board, institutions are
looking for ways to control costs while still providing a high quality of service. Institutions are
challenged by the need to support ever more students with fewer resources and staff. As a result,
creative institutions are developing new models to serve students. As these pressures continue,
other models may emerge that diverge from traditional ones. Simply capitalizing on new
technology, however, is not enough; the new models must use these tools and services to engage
students on a deeper level.
2) Digital media literacy continues its rise in importance as a key skill in every discipline and
profession. This challenge appears at the top of the list because despite the widespread
agreement on the importance of digital media literacy, training in the supporting skills and
techniques is still very rare in teacher education. As classroom professionals begin to realize that
they are limiting their students by not helping them to develop and use digital media literacy skills
across the curriculum, the lack of formal training is being offset through professional development
or informal learning, but we are far from seeing digital media literacy as a norm. This challenge is
exacerbated by the fact that digital literacy is less about tools and more about thinking, and thus
skills and standards based on tools and platforms have proven to be somewhat ephemeral.
3) The demand for personalized learning is not adequately supported by current technology
or practices. The increasing demand for education that is customized to each student's unique
needs is driving the development of new technologies that provide more learner choice and
control and allow for differentiated instruction. It has become clear that one-size-fits-all teaching
methods are neither effective nor acceptable for today's diverse students. Technology can and
should support individual choices about access to materials and expertise, amount and type of
educational content, and methods of teaching.
4) Cross-institution authentication and detailed access policies are needed to allow sharing
of online experiments among institutions. While teachers are more equipped than ever to
produce online experiments, what they are creating is rarely scalable. Too many institutions are
recreating the same types of experiments over and over. Quality standards may improve the reuse
of federated designs and experiments, but institutions also need to consider standards that would
allow students from collaborating institutions to access data and tools across security domains.
5) Appropriate metrics of evaluation lag behind the emergence of new scholarly forms of
authoring, publishing, and researching. Traditional approaches to scholarly evaluation such as
citation-based metrics, for example, are often hard to apply to research that is disseminated or
conducted via social media. New forms of peer review and approval, such as reader ratings,
inclusion in and mention by influential blogs, tagging, incoming links, and re-tweeting, are arising
from the natural actions of the global community of educators, with increasingly relevant and
interesting results. These forms of scholarly corroboration are not yet well understood by
mainstream faculty and academic decision makers, creating a gap between what is possible and
what is acceptable.
Top Ten Challenges
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 20
6) Institutional barriers present formidable challenges to moving forward in a constructive
way with emerging technologies. Too often it is the educational system’s own processes and
practices that limit broader uptake of new technologies. Much resistance to change is simply
comfort with the status quo, but in other cases, such as in promotion and tenure reviews,
experimentation or innovative applications of technologies are often seen as outside the role of
researcher or scientist.
7) Traditional forms of assessment do not translate well into ICT-mediated learning
scenarios. As new technologies are embedded in course designs within STEM disciplines,
assessment processes must evolve as well. Writing assignments can be a very effective part of an
assessment strategy, for example, but when enrollments exceed a few dozen students, they
become impractical. As ICT environments scale, the assessment models must as well. We must find
ways to ensure students fully demonstrate and apply their knowledge.
8) As new advances in technology present new opportunities in education, questions of
inequity and inequality have never been more important. Emerging technologies and tools
are supposed to provide more open access to all. However, often times only those who already
have access to resources, such as Internet, can use the new tools. The challenge is to ensure we
make technology choices that expand opportunity, while we also work on policies and programs
that can narrow the divide.
9) Online educational resources must be more mobile-friendly. As smartphones and tablets
gain more traction in educational settings, there is a demand for online content to keep up, to
load quickly, to be of high quality, and to be easy to use. Online educational resources must meet
this demand to be relevant to today’s students.
10) The growing choice that emerging technologies make possible — and how people
navigate through this choice — is an on-going challenge. When there are so many options for
both educators and students on which technologies to use, it is easy to lose sight of how they will
impact the teaching and learning process. In online learning environments in particular, there is a
plethora of available communication, collaboration, and information management platforms.
Individually, each tool or application may be effective, but when used all together, they can create
a complex user interface where the focus is on the technologies rather than the learning.
Navigating through the potential technologies and understanding how they will interact with
each other to create a simple, easy-to-use environment is a pressing issue that must be solved at
the conceptual — not implementation — level.
Methodology
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 21
Methodology
The process used to research and create the Technology Outlook for STEM+ Education 2012-2017:
An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis is very much rooted in the methods used throughout
the NMC Horizon Project. All publications of the NMC’s Horizon Project are produced using a
carefully constructed process that is informed by both primary and secondary research. Dozens of
technologies, meaningful trends, and critical challenges are examined for possible inclusion in the
report for each edition. Every report draws on the considerable expertise of an internationally
renowned advisory board that first considers a broad set of important emerging technologies,
challenges, and trends, and then examines each of them in progressively more detail, reducing the
set until the final listing of technologies, trends, and challenges is selected.
Much of the process takes place online, where it is captured and placed in the NMC Horizon
Project wiki. This wiki, which has grown into a resource of hundreds of pages, is intended to be a
completely transparent window onto the work of the project, and contains the entire record of the
research for each of the various editions. The section of the wiki used for the Technology Outlook
for STEM+ Education 2012-2017 can be found at stem.wiki.nmc.org.
The procedure for selecting the topics that will be in the report includes a modified Delphi process
now refined over years of producing the NMC Horizon Report series, and it begins with the
assembly of the advisory board. The board as a whole is intended to represent a wide range of
backgrounds, nationalities, and interests, yet each member brings a particularly relevant expertise.
To date, hundreds of internationally recognized practitioners and experts have participated in the
NMC Horizon Project Advisory Boards; in any given year, a third of advisory board members are
new, ensuring a flow of fresh perspectives each year.
Once the advisory board for a particular edition is constituted, their work begins with a systematic
review of the literature — press clippings, reports, essays, and other materials — that pertains to
emerging technology. Advisory board members are provided with an extensive set of background
materials when the project begins, and are then asked to comment on them, identify those that
seem especially worthwhile, and add to the set. The group discusses existing applications of
emerging technology and brainstorms new ones. A key criterion for the inclusion of a topic is the
potential relevance of the topic to teaching, learning, research, or information management.
A carefully selected set of RSS feeds from dozens of relevant publications ensures that background
resources stay current as the project progresses. They are used to inform the thinking of the
participants throughout the process.
Following the review of the literature, the advisory board engages in the central focus of the
research — the research questions that are at the core of the NMC Horizon Project. These
questions are designed to elicit a comprehensive listing of interesting technologies, challenges,
and trends from the advisory board:
1. Which of the key technologies catalogued in the Horizon Listing will be most important to
teaching, learning, or research in STEM+ education within the next five years?
2. What key technologies are missing from our list? Consider these related questions:
a. What would you list among the established technologies that some STEM+ institutions
and programs are using today that arguably ALL institutions and programs should be
using broadly to support or enhance teaching, learning, or research?
b. What technologies that have a solid user base in consumer, entertainment, or other
industries should STEM+ institutions and programs be actively looking for ways to
apply?
c. What are the key emerging technologies you see developing to the point that STEM+
institutions and programs should begin to take notice during the next four to five
years?
Methodology
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 22
3. What trends do you expect to have a significant impact on the ways in which STEM+
institutions and programs approach our core missions of teaching, learning, and research?
4. What do you see as the key challenges related to teaching, learning, and research that
STEM+ institutions and programs will face during the next five years?
One of the advisory board’s most important tasks is to answer these questions as systematically
and broadly as possible, so as to ensure that the range of relevant topics is considered. Once this
work is done, a process that moves quickly over just a few days, the advisory board moves to a
unique consensus-building process based on an iterative Delphi-based methodology.
In the first step of this approach, the responses to the research questions are systematically ranked
and placed into adoption horizons by each advisory board member using a multi-vote system that
allows members to weight their selections. Each member is asked to also identify the timeframe
during which they feel the technology would enter mainstream use — defined for the purpose of
the project as about 20% of institutions adopting it within the period discussed. (This figure is
based on the research of Geoffrey A. Moore and refers to the critical mass of adoptions needed for
a technology to have a chance of entering broad use.) These rankings are compiled into a
collective set of responses, and inevitably, the ones around which there is the most agreement are
quickly apparent.
For additional detail on the project methodology or to review the instrumentation, the ranking,
and the interim products behind the report, please visit the project wiki at stem.wiki.nmc.org.
——————— !" ———————
© 2012, NMC An NMC Horizon Report Sector Analysis Page 23
2012 Horizon Project STEM+ Advisory Board
Larry Johnson
Project Director
NMC
United States
Sergio Martin
Co-Principal Investigator
UNED
Spain
Samantha Adams
Lead Writer and Researcher
NMC
United States
Russ Meier
Co-Principal Investigator
Milwaukee School of Engineering
United States
Manuel Castro
Co-Principal Investigator
UNED
Spain
Daniel Torres
Co-Principal Investigator
CSEV
Spain
Kristin Atkins
Qualcomm
United States
Michael E. Auer
Carinthia Tech Institute and
International Association of
Online Engineering
Austria
Philip H. Bailey
MIT
United States
Ivica Boticki
University of Zagreb
Croatia
Rafael Calvo
University of Sydney
Australia
Vanessa Chang
Curtin University
Australia
Shane Cronin
Cork Institute of Technology
Ireland
Uriel Cukierman
Universidad Tecnológica
Nacional
Argentina
Vicki Davis
Cool Cat Teacher
United States
Jennifer DeBoer
MIT
United States
Carlos Delgado Kloos
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Spain
Philip Desenne
Harvard University
United States
Zeinab El Maadawi
Cairo University
Egypt
Carlos Fosca
Pontificia Universidad Católica
Perú
David Gago
CSEV
Spain
Denis Gillet
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de
Lausanne
Switzerland
Christian Guetl
Graz University of Technology
Austria/Australia
Rocael Hernández Rizzardini
Universidad Galileo
Guatemala
Lung Hsiang Wong
National Institute of Education
Singapore
Mohamed JEMNI
University of Tunis
Tunisia
Paul Kim
Stanford University
United States
Eric Klopfer
MIT
United States
Vijay Kumar
MIT
United States/India
Deborah Lee
Mississippi State University
United States
Phil Long
University of Queensland
Australia
David Lowe
The University of Sydney
Australia
Holly Ludgate
NMC
United States
Akinori Nishihara
Tokio Tech
Japan
Nick Noakes
The Hong Kong University of Science
and Technology
Hong Kong
Hiroaki Ogata
University of Tokushima
Japan
Sarah Porter
JISC
United Kingdom
Shirley Reushle
University of Southern Queensland
Australia
Ed Rodley
Museum of Science
United States
Salvador Ros
UNED
Spain
Jaime Sanchez
Universidad de Chile
Chile
Kari Stubbs
BrainPOP
United States
Linmi Tao
Tsinghua University
China
Jim Vanides
HP
United States
Antonio Vantaggiato
Universidad del Sagrado Corazón
Puerto Rico
Kristina Woolsey
Exploratorium
United States
doc_117141930.pdf