Over the span of its history, On the Horizon has been shaped (sometimes gently, sometimes by seismic shifts) by the ideas that have found a home in its pages. None has cast a longer shadow, or illuminated more discussion, than Marc Prensky’s “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1,” published in 2001. In that singular piece, Prensky captured the anxieties and aspirations of an era on the cusp of digital transformation. He offered language for a generational fault line that defined conversations in classrooms, boardrooms and research labs for decades.
It is with deep sadness that we mark the passing of Marc on May 15, 2025. His vision, both celebrated and contested, helped frame our understanding of change as something lived, embodied and urgent. The notion of “digital natives” has, in the intervening years, been both a guiding light and a provocation; a starting point for new questions about what it means to learn, adapt and thrive in a world forever in motion, driven by technologies.
Yet, as we look to the future, we find the horizon no longer definable, but something in motion, reminding even this journal, long defined by its vantage On the Horizon, that change is our only constant.
Education now finds itself unmoored from the past and thrust instead into a landscape where new realities arrive with astonishing, accelerating speed. The distinction between native and immigrant is less relevant than the shared challenge of perpetual arrival and learning together how to inhabit worlds that are in continuous flux.
In this spirit of renewal, we announce a new direction for this journal. Beginning in 2026, On the Horizon will become Learning Futures and Emerging Technologies. This change is an invitation to think boldly, to imagine generously and to pursue the possibilities that new technologies bring to human development.
With a new title brings a revised aims and scope. We seek to provide a platform for rigorous, imaginative scholarship on the evolving interplay between technology, education and society. We welcome explorations of artificial intelligence in educational contexts, including personalized learning, intelligent tutoring, assessment, ethics and the creation of transformative tools and platforms. But our vision extends further, embracing virtual and augmented reality, blockchain, gamification, the Internet of Things, learning analytics and the changing landscapes of curriculum, policy and practice.
We invite contributions that look forward: original research, thoughtful reviews, case studies and theoretical reflections that challenge orthodoxy and illuminate new paths. The world’s needs are shifting socially, economically, environmentally and culturally. Our design of learning systems must respond the demands of a tomorrow we cannot yet imagine.
On a personal note, I am delighted to welcome Dr Swetal Sindhvad as associate editor, joining us in 2025. Swetal brings a wealth of experience and a rare ability to bridge research, practice and vision. Her insight, energy and global perspective will help shape our collective journey into the futures of learning.
As we honor the legacy of thinkers like Marc, we do so not by holding fast to old certainties, but by turning with curiosity (and a measure of courage and hope) toward what comes next. The horizon, as ever, beckons.
Onward!
