Larry Johnson (born December 17, 1950, in Corpus Christi, Texas) is an American futurist, author, and educator. Currently, Johnson serves as the Founder and CEO of EdFutures.org, [1] an international think tank, and as a Senior Fellow of the Center for Digital Education. [2] From 2001-2016, he served as Chief Executive Officer of the New Media Consortium an international consortium of hundreds of universities, colleges, museums, research centers, and technology companies. [3]
The annual Horizon Report was the most visible component of the Horizon Project, which Johnson founded and led from its inception in 2002 until 2016. The report was one of the leading tools used by senior executives in universities and museums to set priorities for technology planning in those years in more than 160 countries. [4]
He served for nearly 15 years as Chief Executive Officer of the NMC [5] and provided leadership in the areas of strategic planning; program development; fundraising; partnerships with business and industry; the development and management of fiscal and human resources; and policy. Under Johnson's tenure, the New Media Consortium (NMC) grew to be an international not-for-profit consortium of learning-focused organizations dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies. Its hundreds of member institutions still constitute an elite list of the most highly regarded colleges and universities in the world, as well as leading museums, key research centers, and some of the world's most forward-thinking companies. Under his leadership, the consortium and its members dedicated themselves to exploring and developing potential applications of emerging technologies for learning, research, and creative inquiry. The consortium's Horizon Reports, which Johnson founded and directed for more than a decade, are still regarded worldwide as the most timely and authoritative sources of information on new and emerging technologies available to education anywhere.
Johnson has organized summits and large-scale projects around topics such as Visual literacy, [6] learning objects, [7] educational gaming, [8] the future of scholarship, [9] and the 3D web. [10]
In April 2008, Johnson presented testimony to the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet on the nature and state of virtual worlds. [11] [12]
An author of several books, numerous chapters, dozens of articles, and principal investigator for several important national and international studies, he has been recognized for his research by the American Association of Community Colleges [13] and the American Association of University Administrators. [14]
In 2016, Johnson marked 35 years of service in higher education, and currently serves as the Founder and CEO of EdFutures.org, [15] an international think tank, and as a Senior Fellow of the Center for Digital Education. From 2001-2016, he served as CEO of the New Media Consortium. [16] He served previously as president and CEO of Fox Valley Technical College, a community college serving more than 20,000 FTE in Appleton, Wisconsin. His experiential base includes service at both very large and very small institutions and positions at every level and across all the major areas of college and university work.
Between 1993 and 1996, he served as vice president for the League for Innovation in the Community College, [17] working at the national level to take the story of community colleges to governmental, foundation, and corporate leaders across the country. As director of the League's Information Technology Initiative, he coordinated what was at the time the world’s largest higher education technology conference, The International Conference of Information Technology. [18]
He has served on a number of boards, including his current role on the governing board of the Institute for Learning Innovation [19] and the Leadership Advisory Board of the Center for Learning Innovation and Customized Knowledge Solutions in Dubai. [20] Previously he served as an advisor to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), on the NMC Board of Directors, [21] the Adobe Systems Higher Education Advisory Board, the Advanced Defense Learning Initiative National Advisory Board, [22] the virtual International Spaceflight Museum, [23] and the Academic Commons Board of Directors. [24]
Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually involved correspondence courses wherein the student corresponded with the school via mail. Distance education is a technology-mediated modality and has evolved with the evolution of technologies such as video conferencing, TV, and the Internet. Today, it usually involves online education and the learning is usually mediated by some form of technology. A distance learning program can either be completely a remote learning, or a combination of both online learning and traditional offline classroom instruction. Other modalities include distance learning with complementary virtual environment or teaching in virtual environment (e-learning).
Educational games are games explicitly designed with educational purposes, or which have incidental or secondary educational value. All types of games may be used in an educational environment, however educational games are games that are designed to help people learn about certain subjects, expand concepts, reinforce development, understand a historical event or culture, or assist them in learning a skill as they play. Game types include board, card, and video games.
A computer lab is a space where computer services are provided to a defined community. These are typically public libraries and academic institutions. Generally, users must follow a certain user policy to retain access to the computers. This usually consists of rules such as no illegal activity during use or attempts to circumvent any security or content-control software while using the computers.
EpiDoc is an international community that produces guidelines and tools for encoding in TEI XML scholarly and educational editions of ancient documents, especially inscriptions and papyri.
Synchronous learning refers to a learning event in which a group of students are engaging in learning at the same time. Before learning technology allowed for synchronous learning environments, most online education took place through asynchronous learning methods. Since synchronous tools that can be used for education have become available, many people are turning to them as a way to help decrease the challenges associated with transactional distance that occurs in online education. Several case studies that found that students are able to develop a sense of community over online synchronous communication platforms.
The New Media Consortium (NMC) was an international 501(c)(3) not-for-profit consortium of learning-focused organizations dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies.
The Virtual Universe Community or VUC is the internal IBM interest group for Virtual Worlds.
Amy Susan Bruckman is a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology affiliated with the School of Interactive Computing and the GVU Center. She is best known for her pioneering research in the fields of online communities and the learning sciences. In 1999, she was selected as one of MIT Technology Review's TR100 awardees, honoring 100 remarkable innovators under the age of 35.
An open textbook is a textbook licensed under an open license, and made available online to be freely used by students, teachers and members of the public. Many open textbooks are distributed in either print, e-book, or audio formats that may be downloaded or purchased at little or no cost.
Challenge-based learning (CBL) is a framework for learning while solving real-world Challenges. The framework is collaborative and hands-on, asking all participants to identify Big Ideas, ask good questions, discover and solve Challenges, gain in-depth subject area knowledge, develop 21st-century skills, and share their thoughts with the world.
Ira H. Fuchs is an internationally known authority on technology innovation in higher education and is a co-founder of BITNET, an important precursor of the Internet. He was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2017. Since 2012 he has been President of BITNET, LLC a consulting firm specializing in online learning and other applications of technology in higher education.
Learning analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs. The growth of online learning since the 1990s, particularly in higher education, has contributed to the advancement of Learning Analytics as student data can be captured and made available for analysis. When learners use an LMS, social media, or similar online tools, their clicks, navigation patterns, time on task, social networks, information flow, and concept development through discussions can be tracked. The rapid development of massive open online courses (MOOCs) offers additional data for researchers to evaluate teaching and learning in online environments.
The CUNY Academic Commons is an online, academic social network for community members of the City University of New York (CUNY) system. Designed to foster conversation, collaboration, and connections among the 24 individual colleges that make up the university system, the site, founded in 2009, has quickly grown as a hub for the CUNY community, serving in the process to strengthen a growing group of digital scholars, teachers, and open-source projects at the university.
Paul Kim is currently a Korean-American Chief Technology Officer and Associate Dean at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and has held this position since 2001.
Mobile computer-supported collaborative learning may have different meanings depending on the context in which it is applied. Mobile CSCL includes any in-class and out-of-class use of handheld mobile devices such as cell phones, smart phones, and personal digital assistants (PDAs) to enable collaborative learning.
The Concord Consortium was founded in 1994 as an educational research and development organization to create large-scale improvements in K-14 teaching and learning through technology.
The Horizon Project is an initiative by EDUCAUSE to chart emerging technologies and trends impacting the future of higher education across domains such as teaching and learning and information security. Drawing on insights from a global panel of leaders from across the higher education landscape, the objective of each Horizon Report is to shape decision-making among higher education professionals by helping them imagine a range of possible futures and think through the present-day implications of those futures. The Horizon Project was launched in 2002 by Laurence F. Johnson, CEO of NMC, and since the 2018 edition has been published by EDUCAUSE.
Concentric Sky is a software development company located in Eugene, Oregon. The company was founded in 2005 by Wayne Skipper, and grew to nearly 90 employees prior its sale to Instructure in April 2022. In 2015, Cale Bruckner was promoted to President of the company. Skipper continued to serve as CEO until the company's sale. Concentric Sky is the maker of Badgr and is a well-known contributor to the development of open technology standards focused on advancing equity outcomes for learners and workers.
Online learning involves courses offered by primary institutions that are 100% virtual. Online learning, or virtual classes offered over the internet, is contrasted with traditional courses taken in a brick-and-mortar school building. It is a development in distance education that expanded in the 1990s with the spread of the commercial Internet and the World Wide Web. The learner experience is typically asynchronous but may also incorporate synchronous elements. The vast majority of institutions utilize a learning management system for the administration of online courses. As theories of distance education evolve, digital technologies to support learning and pedagogy continue to transform as well.
Richard Holeton is an American writer and higher-education administrator. His creative works are foundational in the hypertext and electronic literature genres. As a writer, his most notable work is the hypertext novel Figurski at Findhorn on Acid, which has been recognized as an important early work of electronic literature and is included in the hypertext canon.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)