2009 Horizon Report Australia-New Zealand Edition

About the Horizon Project

The Horizon Project is a long-running research project that since 2002 has continuously examined new and emerging technologies and the trends and issues accompanying them, and produced an ongoing series of reports, wikis, discussions, papers and other resources related to this work. The annual Horizon Report, the project’s flagship effort, is released each January and is currently published in six languages. That report looks at the applications of key new technologies to teaching, learning, and critical enquiry from a global perspective, and reaches hundreds of thousands of educators worldwide.

Throughout the year, a series of related editions are released that reflect the project’s work in specific economic sectors and geographic regions. This report, the annual Australia-New Zealand Edition, is one of the most visible parts of that effort, which also includes an annual K12 Edition as well as special reports such as the recent Economic Development Edition and a series of high-level discussions within the museum community.

Like the umbrella efforts from which it sprung, the Australia-New Zealand Edition used qualitative research methods to identify the technologies selected for inclusion in the report. The process began with a survey of the work of other organisations and a review of the literature with an eye to spotting interesting emerging technologies. When the cycle started, little was known, or even could be known, about the appropriateness or efficacy of many of the emerging technologies for these purposes, as the Horizon Project expressly focuses on technologies not currently in widespread use in academe. For the current report, more than eighty of these were initially considered by the members of the project’s Advisory Board.

The 37 members of this year’s Advisory Board were purposely chosen to represent a broad swath of Australian and New Zealand education, as well as key writers and thinkers from business and industry. They engaged in a comprehensive review and analysis of research, articles, papers, and interviews; discussed existing applications, and brainstormed new ones; and ultimately ranked the items on the list of candidate technologies for their potential relevance to teaching, learning, and creative expression. This work took place entirely online in May and June 2009, using a variety of tools specially purposed for the project. All of this work was captured and may be reviewed on the project wiki, at http://horizon.nmc.org/anz. For additional background on the Australia-New Zealand project and specifics about the research methodology, please see the section on Methodology at the end of this report.