I think those who think that we will not need keyboards are missing a few important points. Here's the issue - I can type faster than I can talk. Also, in the classroom - 20 kids talking to their computers it would be chaos and a mess. Typing, however, has a speed benefit and doesn't require a "cone of silence" as a everyone talking to their glasses would. I think keyboarding will remain part of the productive equipment of most of us - until our devices can read our brain waves. For those who type less than 30 words a minute and work in a quiet office, this is likely to be true.

Meanwhile, this is a great read about what will happen in our homes, at least.

The 2012 horizon report is out. It reveals the trends for higher education in the next 1-4 years.

"This year’s NMC Horizon Report identifies mobile apps and tablet computing as technologies expected to enter mainstream use in the first horizon of one year or less. Game-based learning and learning analytics are seen in the second horizon of two to three years; gesture-based computing and the Internet of Things are seen emerging in the third horizon of four to five years. View the work that produced the report on the wiki."

The video on this blog post is a funny take on gesture based gmail. For those familiar with Google's April fools day joke, you'll get a kick out of this.

I love this! Gmail motion was Google's april fools day prank and many people fell for it. Heck, if I'd had time, I might have played with it but after thinking I realized what day it was! Tee hee.

But a lot of people WANTED this -even though the gestures were designed to be silly (who is going to do a jumping jack for making a star on an email.) so ICT used a kinect camera and actually made Gmail actions work! Watch the video and enjoy.

People actually WANT this just not with the exaggerated motions and definitely not a shot that requires the camera to see your feet.

The horizon report is out and will be the subject of our NetGenEd Project this year. Current trends:

Time to adoption: One Year or Less

* Electronic Books
* Mobiles

Time to adoption: Two to Three Years

* Augmented Reality
* Game-based Learning

Time to adoption: Four to Five Years

* Gesture-based Computing
* Learning Analytics

Important video for gesture based students to view. This is about the evolution of input into the computer. Pranav Mistry is the inventor.

The mouse and keyboard are no longer the only way to input data into computing devices. This trend capitalizes on touch interfaces as made popular by the itouch/ iphone as well as the gesture based interfaces made popular by the Wii. Additionally, sixth sense computing (as seen in Minority Report) is a reality as this has already been invented.

These links are from the Horizon Report 2010 and will be used by students in the NetGenEd project to understanding Gesture Based computing