2010 will mark a great change in the way we learn. We’ll be able to create dynamic learning materials customized to our individual interests; these materials will be available wherever we are – at home or on the move – and they’ll be morphing organically as they’re built out via tools of collaboration by passionate communities of learners.

The days of static, one-size-fits-all, publisher-driven learning materials such as textbooks will be numbered. And all of this will ultimately redefine what we once considered the act of “learning.”

We would even go as far as to say that in 2010 a convergence of several trends that gained traction in 2009 will gather momentum and disrupt education in an unprecedented way. Not everything will fall apart, or come together, in 2010. But the writing will start to appear on the wall for the traditional school-publisher complex, and the opportunities available in this market for web entrepreneurs are going to crystallize in the eyes of many.

In the sphere of learning, the top trends we seeing emerging are the following:

1. Harnessing the Digital Content Explosion:

It’s common knowledge that the world is undergoing an exponential growth of information. Currently, over 40 million terabytes of new information is created every year. To put that number in perspective, that is more information than was created over the 5,000 years prior to advent of the Internet.

In fact, information is created so fast that it is currently doubling every 2 years and is expected to double every 72 hours in 2010. This means that we’ve already begun to see large quantities of static data naturally transformed into usable pieces of digital content.

But to date, most online learning ventures have focused on converting static analog content to “digital’ content, but what is the value of digital content if it remains static? As content itself becomes essentially free, real value is going to be generated at the level of disseminating, analyzing, interpreting, and repackaging this content for use across a variety of platforms.

For education specifically, this value creation process centers around harnessing the “power of the internet” to build, discover and deliver digestible learning information to our doorstep, just at the right time.

2. Real-Time Web Meets Semantics:

v With all the information readily available, we need better technologies to identify relevant content and to enable us to learn what we need to know when we need to know it.

This is where the Real-time Web meets the bottom-up Semantic Web.

Everyday, the Real-time Web creates an abundance of timely information on almost everything that is happening. This stream of information is helpful, but desperately overwhelming unless you know exactly where, when and how to look at it.

This is were semantics can help –  semantics enable people and machines to work together and provide structure that turns noise into signal, and this signal can power search, recommendation, relevance, and, eventually, learning.

Giving the web an underlying level of structure will enable us to find current, up-to-date content that is most relevant to users. Now all we need is a way to digest it –  enter Just-in-time Learning.

3. The Web Meets Just-In-Time Learning and Spaced Rehearsal:

Just-in-time learning is highly interactive, anytime-anywhere learning that will deliver relevant content when we need it; i.e., when we need to learn it, and when we need to use it. 

The best way to digest real-time information, on the go, is in bite-sized chunks. In order to be more efficient learners, we need to start preparing, today, to design learning experiences that embrace the info-overload reality, rather than ignore or fight it.

Adaptive learning based around the concept of “spaced rehearsal” (or “spaced repetition”) is the 2010 answer to efficiently digesting bite-sized chunks of information. Research has shown that there is an optimum moment to review whatever we’re learning, and that moment is right before we’re likely to forget it. Information which is presented over increasingly spaced intervals – i.e. learned at dates further and further apart – is retained far more effectively that in traditional short-term cramming.

The problem is that calculating the moment for a vast stream of information is far beyond the capacity of the human brain – but it’s not beyond the capacity of intelligent software.

We now not only have the computing capacity to generate personalized learning schedules, but we also have the Web, and more specifically, the Mobile Web – a fertile setting for the creation, sharing, and consumption of an infinite variety of learning content.

The explosion of mobile devices we saw in 2009 has created an arena that will facilitate life-long learning for those too busy to carve out time from their busy schedules. Learning anywhere at anytime – getting stuff into your head literally from the palm of your hand – is going to be as commonplace as dropping items into virtual shopping carts.

4. A Quantum Leap in Collaboration:

Web-based applications are opening an entirely new dimension of collaborative learning, creating environments where we can all teach and learn from each other. Social networks have become common platforms for communication and collaboration, but their potential value has yet to be realized for learning.

While mobile learning is the future of how we learn as individuals, Web-enabled peer-to-peer collaboration will alleviate the irritating and somewhat arbitrary limitations of geography. Collaborative tools will also re-define the traditional roles of teacher and student. We’ll slip from learner to contributor so fluidly that we’ll stop thinking in such rigidly redefined terms as teacher and student.

Experts in any given field, regardless of their physical location, now have the opportunity to share their knowledge and educate others around the world. As institutions and communities continue to face constrained resources, enabling educational experiences through online resources and networks will not only become more abundant, but also more necessary.

Networking technology will foster rich collaborative hubs where friends, followers and members of online learning communities inhabit various spaces of beginner, enthusiast and expert, based on a shifting context.

The Coming Years:

The groundwork has already been laid. The maturation of the trends discussed above will revolutionize how, when and where we learn, forcing traditional education institutions to rethink their approach, or face falling behind.

In other words, 2010 will be the year that education stopped hiding from the Internet.