My new column is up at Library Journal:
If you are on the fence about emerging technologies, take a look at the new Horizon Report (www.nmc.org/horizon). The 2011 report not only pre sents technologies to watch but offers a road map for planning and an ongoing dialog about change in education, learning, and libraries. Supported by research and evidence, it points the way to the future.
This rich trove will spark your thinking, as it did mine. Here are some of my observations and ideas.
Conversation-based reading
Reading becomes social. While the ebook market continues to steamroll past libraries, the report offers an intriguing concept: “What makes electronic books a potentially transformative technology is the new kinds of reading experiences that they make possible” (p. 8). Reading can remain a solitary, enjoyable activity for all, but some may choose to experience a more conversation-based form of consumption of content.
I’ve long included “context books” in my teaching—notable titles centered on social issues, learning, and technology outside our field to illustrate LIS concepts and expand students’ purview. This semester, I used the highlighting feature on my Kindle to clip passages in Peter Morville’s Ambient Findability and Nick Bilton’s I Live in the Future. Those thought-provoking bits sit on a web page devoted to my reading (bit.ly/e6I351). I can choose to tweet those highlights and 140-character commentary to my classes via a hashtag. I can display highlights and commentary of selected context books within my course sites. In turn, students will be able to comment on the passages, as well as retweet them to others.