The document discusses several critical shifts happening in education driven by technology: 1) Teachers are increasingly expected to integrate technology into their teaching and professional development. 2) Open educational resources are growing and being adopted more in classrooms and schools. 3) Hybrid learning models that blend online and in-person learning are being used more to engage students in a variety of ways. 4) There is a push to change traditional classroom experiences and rearrange school schedules to support more flexible, student-centered, project-based learning approaches.

1. RETHINKING HOW SCHOOLS WORK
Some critical shifts are happening in education driven by technology. These
changes affect everything from the role of the teacher to a rethinking of how
schools themselves work.
According to the report: "Teachers are increasingly expected to be adept at a
variety of ICT-based and other approaches for content delivery, learner support,
and assessment; to collaborate with other teachers both inside and outside their
schools; to routinely use digital strategies in their work with students and act as
guides and mentors; and to organize their own work and comply with
administrative documentation and reporting requirements. Furthermore,
teachers are increasingly using experimental teaching approaches and
integrating technology into their professional development. Open educational
resources will play an increasing role in education at the policy level, and that
has distinct implications for technology adoption since most OER is in an
electronic format.
"Open content, or open educational resources (OER), are growing in breadth
and quality, as is the use of these materials in classrooms, networks, and school
communities," the report's authors noted. "The use and adoption of open
content materials is increasingly a matter of policy in schools, especially in the
many disciplines in which high quality educational content is more abundant
than ever." Understanding that the term “open” is a multifaceted concept is
essential to following this trend; often mistaken to simply mean “free of charge,”
advocates of open content have worked towards a common vision that defines it
more broadly — not just free in economic terms, but also in terms of ownership
and usage rights. The goal is that open content are freely copiable, freely
remixable, and free of barriers to access, cultural sensitivities, sharing, and
educational use. The 2012 UNESCO Paris OER Declaration has been a crucial
document for defining open as it relates to the creation, circulation, and
standardization of open content.
Equally worth mentioning is the increasing use of hybrid learning designs.
Hybrid models, when designed and implemented effectively, enable students to
use the school day for group work and project-based activities, while using the
network to access readings, videos, and other learning materials on their own
time, leveraging the best of both environments.
"As teachers and students alike become more familiar with and adept at using the
Internet, traditional classroom pedagogies increasingly include online learning
components, hybrid learning strategies, and increased focus on collaboration within
the classroom," according to the report. "Schools that are making use of hybrid
learning models are finding that using both the physical and the virtual learning
environments to their highest potentials allows teachers to engage students in a
broader variety of ways, and even extend the learning day."
The authors noted that effective implementation of hybrid learning designs
enables students "to use the school day for group work and project-based

2. activities, while using the network to access readings, videos, and other learning
materials on their own time, leveraging the best of both environments."
"There is now a focused movement to change the traditional classroom
experience and rearrange the school day — a trend that is largely being driven
by the shift to innovative learning approaches. Methods, such as project-
and challenge-based learning, call for school set-ups that enable students to
move from one learning activity to another more organically. Plus, as these
approaches are increasingly multidisciplinary, there is a need for learning
design that better connects each class and set of subject matter to each other,"
the report said. "The traditional bell schedule can be perceived as jarring as it
forces students to move from one class to another in an unnatural manner with
no connection between the projects and activities. As learning becomes
increasingly fluid and student-centered, some teachers and administrators
believe that schedules should be more flexible to allow opportunities for
authentic learning experiences to take place."
REFERENCE
Shifts in Education Driven by Technology By David Nagel (05/21/14)
http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2014-horizon-k12-preview.pdf
Read more at http://thejournal.com/Articles/2014/05/21/6-Shifts-in-Education-
Driven-by-Technology.aspx?Page=1#PMjSOcpMDTtoEbFs.99
The complete preview report is publicly available at nmc.org.
Methodology and additional information can be found on the Horizon Report wiki.