Last year's (and some of this year's) predictions

Stephen Downes has a sharp and useful look-back at last year's annual round up of predictions in eLearn Magazine. Scary, when 10 minutes ago I rather tentatively supplied eLearn with 100 words worth of predictions "for innovations and new directions in e-learning" for 2008. Stephen concludes "that there are two major types of predictions: one, which identifies a current trend, and says it will continue; and the other, that identifies something novel or unexpected. It seems clear that the former predictions are easy and safe and not especially useful. The latter, while not as safe, were much more useful to people". My predictions are squarely in that former "less useful" category:

1. Effective use of RSS by learners, teachers, and learning providers will become more normal. Meanwhile the off-line capabilities of browser-based applications like Google Reader will grow, making a big difference for users with only intermittent Internet access.
2. The hype surrounding social networking will abate, with a greater understanding developing about when social networking supports learning, and when it is a distraction.
3. Many more people will break free from Windows or OSX based systems, and begin to rely instead on cheaper, lighter, disk-free devices, with their "stuff" stored somewhere on the Internet rather than locally.

Comments

[George]

Re item 2, I can't help but recall the often quoted Kurt Vonnegut aphorism: “We are here on Earth to fart around...” I am pleased to see hype abate in any case, but the implicit utilitarian value hierarchy in learning v. distraction might be worth a second look, especially in light of the recent post suggesting that the categorisation of information may be on the way out.