10 Emerging Trends in

Distance Education for K-12

Prepared by Yolande Samuels

ID #- 04022944
EDID6506 Issues, Trends, Innovations and Research in ID, IT & DE | S3 15/16

Augmented Reality
Augmented reality (AR) can serve a variety of
purposes in your classroom. This exciting
technology layers virtual content on top of the
real world, providing an opportunity for
students to interact with content in a completely
new way.
AR is just so much fun and comes in many
different flavors. Everything from free or
inexpensive smartphone apps to full blown 3D
workstations like those fromzSpace. AR is just
one of the coolest educational technologies that
many educators have not even come across yet!

Invisible LMS
Put simply, The Invisible LMS it is the idea that we should
be taking the learning to the learner and not taking the
learner to an LMS interface, which they often doesnt
understand. The learner really doesnt care if there is an
LMS! As learning managers though, we care, as we need to
manage a range of processes and track the impact of
learning.
There are three key requirements: Deeplinks to your
learning content Web services to surface LMS functionality
wherever users need it Single sign-on to remove the barrier
of yet another password The LMS functionality will sit behind
the scenes and we will surface the functionality and data at
the point of need. Sounds simple, right? And it can be

Adaptive Learning &

Competency Based Education

Adaptive Learning still has a while to go to make

it to mainstream, but tools like Moby Max have
led the way in the elementary and secondary
levels, and now LMSs common to higher ed are
increasingly seeking to add Adaptive
functionality (Britespace from D2L is a good
example). The pace of adoption is quickening.
CBE is essentially a fundamental change to how
students get credentialed, which is largely
enabled by Adaptive Learning tools and
pathways. CBE basically the traditional clock
hour as the measurement of learning with, well
learning.

OER
(Open Education Resources)
Open Education Resources are FREE, thats right
free and open educational resources, such as
textbooks, learning content, lessons, and more.
The
concept
of
OER was formally coined back in 2002, and the
quantity and quality of these resources has
expanded steadily ever since, yet awareness has
been slow to build.
In the world of K-12, theK-12 OER Collaborative,
is creating comprehensive, high-quality, open
educational
resources
(OER)
supporting
Mathematics and English Language Arts aligned
with state standards. Launched in 2014, the
Collaborative sought proposals to create fullcourse, high-quality resources supporting K12

Mobile Learning
Mobile is changing everything and education is no
exception. This is surely an area where we are going to
continue to see big changes as the world slowly gets its
head around the way the powerful devices so many of us
have in our hands can seriously change how we
communicate, connect, reach out, access content,
research, learn, think, act, and the list just keeps
growing.
If learning really can take place any time, any where,
shouldnt we encourage it? This is yet another change that
is happening whether we choose to acknowledge it or not.
More teachers are
embracing the power of this device as an instructional aid .

Student-driven personalized
learning
Students will be in control not only
ofwhenthey learn, but will demand that
they contribute to their learning through
discussions and collaboration, creating
content while doing so. This studentdriven phenomenon suggests that
schools and higher education institutions
will need to respond by creating learning
programs that acknowledge that the
learner is seeking this kind of
personalized learning experience.

Cloud Computing
Although software application service models have
been around for more than 30 years, the advent of
tools such as Google provides for educators and cloud
computing is rapidly changing the field and models for
deploying and leveraging technology in academic
institutions and K-12 learning environments. Hosting is
remote.
K-12 districts no longer have to spend time, money,
and bandwidth maintaining their own technology
hardware. By offloading this labor-intensive job to the
cloud, districts are saving as much as 20 to 30 percent
or more as well as improving teaching and learning.

Digital Badges
Badges are seen as a way to grant certification for formal
and informal learning in the form of microcredits, which
assess learned skills based on outcomes, rather than seat
time. Often viewed as a component of gamification, digital
badges are being implemented to help track, capture, and
visualize learning in a way that incentivizes students. The
concept behind badging embodies historical models of
recognition for personal skills and achievement, such as
when a Boy or Girl Scout earns a merit badge. Currently,
digital badging systems are gaining traction in many online
learning environments including Khan Academy, with
promising results. One key development that has helped the
progress of digital badges was the Open Badge Initiative
(OBI) an open specification for badging established by the
Mozilla Foundation, which enables providers and users alike
to display achievements on the web, on any platform.

3D Printing
Known in industrial circles as rapid prototyping, 3D printing refers
to technologies that construct physical objects from threedimensional (3D) digital content such as 3D modeling software,
computer-aided design (CAD) tools, computer-aided tomography
(CAT), and X-ray crystallography. A 3D printer builds a tangible
model or prototype from the electronic file, one layer at a time,
through an extrusion-like process using plastics and other flexible
materials, or an inkjet-like process to spray a bonding agent onto a
very thin layer of fixable powder. The deposits created by the
machine can be applied very accurately to build an object from the
bottom up, layer by layer, with resolutions that, even in the least
expensive machines, are more than sufficient to express a large
amount of detail. The process even accommodates moving parts
within the object. Using different materials and bonding agents,
color can be applied, and parts can be rendered in plastic, resin, or
metal. This technology is commonly used in manufacturing to build
prototypes of almost any object (scaled to fit the printer, of course)
that can be conveyed in three dimensions.

Learning Analytics

Learning analytics is an educational application of web analytics, a

science that is commonly used by businesses to analyze
commercial activities, identify spending trends, and predict
consumer behavior. Education is embarking on a similar pursuit
into data science with the aim of learner profiling, a process of
gathering and analyzing large amounts of detail about individual
student interactions in online learning activities. The goal is to
build better pedagogies, empower students to take an active part
in their learning, target at-risk student populations, and assess
factors affecting completion and student success. For learners,
educators, and researchers, learning analytics is already starting to
provide crucial insights into student progress and interaction with
online texts, courseware, and learning environments used to
deliver instruction. Students are beginning to experience the
benefits of learning analytics as they engage with mobile and
online platforms that track data to create responsive, personalized
learning experiences.

References
3D Printing. (n.d.). Retrieved July 17, 2016, from http://k12.wiki.nmc.org/3D Printing
6 Exciting AR Apps for Student Learning. (2016). Retrieved July 16, 2016, from
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/ar-apps-for-student-learning-monica-burns
Augmented Reality In Education? Here Are 20 Examples. (2012). Retrieved July 16, 2016, from
http://www.teachthought.com/uncategorized/augmented-reality-in-education-here-are-20examples/
Awesome Free Ed Tech Resources eBook! (n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2016, from
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Awesome Free Ed Tech Resources eBook! (n.d.). Retrieved July 17, 2016, from
http://www.emergingedtech.com/2015/04/oer-open-educational-resources-bright-future/
Digital Badges. (n.d.). Retrieved July 17, 2016, from http://k12.wiki.nmc.org/Digital Badges
INACOL. (2015). Retrieved July 17, 2016, from http://www.inacol.org/news/11-big-trends-for-2016predictions-and-changes-ahead-in-k-12-education/
Learning Analytics. (n.d.). Retrieved July 17, 2016, from http://k12.wiki.nmc.org/Learning Analytics
Newbay Media. (n.d.). Retrieved July 17, 2016, from https://nbmedia.wufoo.com/forms/the-casefor-cloud-computing-in-k12/
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