What’s on the Ed-Tech Horizon?

A group of education-technology experts has issued an annual report on what they see as the biggest emerging trends in the next few years. The buzzwords this year, they say, are "social computing," such as the use of Facebook and other Web sites that let users tag content, and "personal broadcasting," such as podcasting and video blogging. In the next few years, look for an upsurge in the use of cellphones for education, the report says, as well as an increased use of educational video games at the college level. Two other trends to watch for are "context-aware devices," such as cellphones that turn themselves off automatically when they sense they are in a classroom during a class session, and "enhanced visualization," or ways to bring to life complex data sets in visual forms.