2008 Horizon Report Australia-New Zealand Edition

Critical Challenges

The Australia–New Zealand Advisory Board noted many challenges facing tertiary education in the region over the next few years, and selected the four listed below as those most likely to impact the practice of teaching, learning, and creative expression over the next five years. The challenges appear in priority order as determined by the Advisory Board.

• Protectionism limits access to materials, ideas, and collaborative opportunities. Security concerns too often go too far. Both policies and firewalls are severely limiting access to — and hampering the utility of — the Internet, the use of digital materials, and many benefits of social networking. Adding to this, the mindset of central network planners and administrators is often at odds with the increasingly user-centric nature of Internet applications and tools, limiting innovation.
• Many teachers do not have the skills to make effective use of emerging technologies, much less teach their students to do so. The technical skills of teachers are too often out of step with those of their students. Related issues are the capabilities of the staff supporting teachers, which suffer from the same problem, limiting the options available for training.
• Assessment continues to be a significant barrier to adopting new tools and approaches. In a sort of chicken-and-egg syndrome, there is a persistent need to have solid data on the efficacy of new tools and approaches that often limits the experimentation required to gain those data in the first place.
• Poor quality broadband limits options at school and at home. Public policy and reliance on telecom companies for infrastructure and broadband services has failed to ensure sufficient resources to support the level of quality broadband penetration needed to remain competitive. Metering adds to this by discouraging network use: the more useful the network is, the more it is used, and the more expensive it becomes — a cyclical process that ultimately discourages greater utility of the network because it adds unmanageable costs.

The challenges and trends noted here provide a perspective with which to frame the potential ramifications of the six technologies described in the 2008 Horizon Report, Australia–New Zealand Edition. They are indicative of the changing environment in which we work as we pursue the activities associated with teaching, learning, and creative expression and are included as an acknowledgment of the fact that neither technology nor education exists in a vacuum.