Each year, Educause and New Media Consortium publish the Horizon Report. This report describes six areas of emerging technology that will have significant impact on higher education and creative expression over the next one to five years. The areas of emerging technology cited for 2012 are:

Time to adoption: One Year or Less

• Mobile Apps
• Tablet Computing

Time to adoption: Two to Three Years

• Game-based Learning
• Learning Analytics

Time to adoption: Four to Five Years

• Gesture-based Computing
• Internet of Things

You can download the report here (PDF).