A preview of the annual New Media Consortium Horizon Report is out, and MOOCs and the flipped classroom are highlighted as “emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in higher education.”
The report says of MOOCs:
The pace of development in the MOOC space is so high that it is likely that a number of alternative models will emerge in the coming year. Ultimately, the models that attract the most participants are gaining the most attention, but many challenges remain to be resolved in supporting learning at scale.
In discussing the flipped classroom, the report says:
The flipped classroom model is part of a larger pedagogical movement that overlaps with blended learning, inquiry-based learning, and other instructional approaches and tools that are meant to be flexible, active, and more engaging for students. It has the potential to better enable educators to design unique and quality learning opportunities, curriculum, and assessments that are more personal and relevant to students’ lives.
The other technologies in the report—including tablet computing, augmented reality, learning analytics, the internet of things and 3D printing—are all part of a wave coming in the next five years that will likely have a profound and transformative effect on higher education.
