The technologies featured in each edition of the NMC Horizon Report are embedded within a contemporary context that reflects the realities of the time, both in the sphere of K-12 education and in the world at large. To ensure this context was well understood,the advisory board engaged in an extensive review of current articles, interviews, papers, and new research to identify and rank trends that are currently affecting teaching, learning, and creative inquiry in K-12 education. Once detailed, the list of trends was then ranked according to how significant each was likely to be for K-12 education in the next five years. Those listed here had significant agreement among the advisory board members, who considered them to be key drivers of educational technology decisions over that time. They are listed here in the order in which the advisory board ranked them.

1

Education paradigms are shifting to include online learning, hybrid learning, and collaborative models. Students already spend much of their free time on the Internet, learning and exchanging new information — often via their social networks. Institutions that embrace face-to-face/online hybrid learning models have the potential to leverage the online skills learners have already developed independent of academia. Online learning environments have distinct advantages over physical campuses, including opportunities for greater collaboration while equipping students with stronger digital skills. Hybrid models, when designed and implemented successfully, enable students to travel to campus for some activities, while using the network for others,taking advantage of the best of both environments.

2

Social media is changing the way people interact, present ideas and information, and communicate. More than 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, and even the general public routinely use social media to share current events, opinions, and articles of interest.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. It is not uncommon, for example, to see teachers using Facebook, Twitter, GoogleHangouts, and other platforms to connect with their students.

3

Openness — concepts like open content, open data, and open resources, along with notions of transparency and easy access to data and information — is becoming a value. As authoritative sources lose their importance, there is need for more curation and other forms of validation to generate meaning in information and media.“Open”has become a term often applied in very different contexts. Often mistaken to mean“free,”open education advocates are working towards a common vision that defines“open” more broadly — not just free in economic terms, but educational materials that are freely copiable, freely remixable, and free of barriers to access, sharing, and educational use.

4

As the cost of technology drops and school districts revise and open up their access policies, it is becoming more common for students to bring their own mobile devices. A growing number of schools are launching“Bring Your Own Device”(BYOD) programs so that students can use the devices they already own in class. This is happening as a result of how BYOD impacts budgets; schools can spend less money on technology overall if they focus their efforts on equipping the students who cannot afford their own devices. The relative new interest in BYOD programs has been accompanied by an attitude shift as schoolteachers and staff better understand the capabilities of smartphones and other devices that, unfortunately, still remain banned on many school
campuses.

5

The abundance of resources and relationships made easily accessible via the Internet is challenging us to revisit our roles as educators. Institutions must consider the unique value that schools add to a world in which information is everywhere, and generally free. 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 and work is again at the forefront. K-12 institutions have always been seen as critical paths to educational credentialing, but challenges from competing sources are redefining what these paths can look like.