Emerging technologies .. what's next?

New Media Consortium and Educause have looked into their crystal balls and have identified six technologies they think will impact our classrooms (face-to-face and virtual) in the near future [Link to the NMC report]. Here's the list:

1. User created content - I think this is the perfect marriage web 2.0 authoring tools like wikis and blogs and Malcolm Knowles theories of androgogy and adult learners. With an emphasis on creative thinking and collaboration, these tools empower our learners to find, evaluate, and report on information relevant to their personal learning.
2. Social networking - Beyond MySpace, consider the learning potential in a world where each learner can connect with experts and other students at a time and pace relevant to his or her learning.
3. Mobile phones - You know, those devices permanently attached to the ears of our students? Imagine the learning impact if we could harness just a little bit of that connection to deliver learning materials, assess understanding, or just to expedite administrative details like when registration opens.
4. Virtual worlds - Second Life ... say no more.
5. New scholarship and emerging forms of publication - Textbooks, as we know them, are almost certainly headed the way of buggy whips and butter churns. Further, the creation of knowledge in some of the collaborative environments available with broadband will almost surely be documented in e-journals and blogs and wikis. That's a far stride from in-print peer-reviewed journals, doncha think?
6. Massively multiplayer educational gaming - Gaming has been the buzz maker at most of the conferences I attended this year. Our school recently added a new program leading to an Associates Degree to study the field. I will be interested to see the research on the learning impact of this growing field.

Pretty interesting, thought-provoking stuff, this NMC report. I wonder how many community college instructors will read it, and how many will begin making the changes to their instructional regimens to prepare for impact of these emerging technologies.