Stephen Downes

Yes it's another 'future trends' article, but I like what seems to be (when compared to all the gee-whiz homages to 2L and mobile web we've been seeing) an almost contrarian set of "opportunity areas" - and a list that is surprisingly in accord with my own thinking. Identity, developer tools, and 'mobility no longer interesting'. Yeah. Because I too am "nonplussed" by the Educause 2007 Horizon Report. As Howell writes, "according to Educause, the 'significant impact' picks for 2007 are: User-Created Content; Social Networking; Mobile Phones; Virtual Worlds; The New Scholarship and Emerging Forms of Publication; Massively Multiplayer Educational Gaming." It's not simply, as she says, that "we are doomed always to lag far behind the crest of the technological wave." It's that it's a list that stridently follows the waves, even when there's nothing really there.