futures toolbox

The Futures Studies Toolbox + iPod Touch: Digitally Enabled Futures Images for the Japanese University

2020 Project.

Michael VallanceDavid L. Wright

Future University Hakodate, Japan

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Sunday, August 15, 2010

Appearances don't always fit with the reality.

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"Everybody knows about that problem. It's so visible. What people don't see, and don't know, is that there are plenty of

hungry people living right here in Tokyo."

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digital homeless

• Despite the country's showy internet speeds and some of the cheapest broadband around many Japanese are happier doing things the old way.

Michael Fitzpatrick. BBC News 13 July 2010.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10543126

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education & technology

• Although Japan’s image may be a nation of high-technology and robotics, the actual implementation of Information Communication Technology (ICT) for basic technology training or more informed creative media utilization at schools and universities, “remains comparatively low, and ICT does not appear as a priority in national education policy” (UNESCO, 2007).

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slow reform• “Confucian hierarchy runs deep...to the

notion of teacher as knower of the right answer and the student a humble imitator of the master” (Drydan, 1998, p.101). This traditional pedagogy is making reform a slow process in an education system which “puts a lot of emphasis on acquiring knowledge through memorization and repetition” (Fujitani, Bhattacharya, & Akahori, 2003, p.34) subsequently accentuating an increasing gap between the subjects taught at school and the activities of real life (Mima, 2003).

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A typical university classroom

looks like a typical High School classroom


Japanese companies want reform

• Graduates: from ‘objects of training’ to ‘subjects who act autonomously’ (Iwawaki, 2004)

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establishment informs students of their futures

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FUN 2010

One of our aims of Futures Communication:- shift from ‘students as consumers’ to ‘students as creators of personalised information’

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DEFI

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DEFI: Digitally Enabled Futures Images


futures toolboxSWOTSTEEPV

LASWELL’S COMMUNICATION FORMULABACK CASTING

FUTURES TRIANGLE ANALYSISSCENARIOS

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FUN 2020 1. Society – what will you communicate to Hakodate and the

world? 2. Technology – what technology should FUN use? 3. Environment – what kinds of energy should FUN use? What

should our classrooms look like? How about no classrooms? 4. Education – what is the syllabus? What subjects should be

taught? What do you think? 5. People –who should be a student at FUN? 6. Values – what kind of university is FUN in 2020?

Laswell’s Communication Formula - applied to Prof. Mogi1. WHO? Who is Mogi Kenichiro? Think about this question carefully.

2. WHAT? What are his main messages in the presentation?

WHAT? What does he say that is useful for the futures of FUN 2020?

3. HOW? How does he communicate his messages? With media? What style? Spoken only? With examples?

4. WHO? Who are his audiences?

5. WHAT? What effects did his presentation haveon you?/ on other people?/ on Future University?

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FTA


resource examples

Your Future in 5 Easy Steps: Wired Guide to Personal Scenario Planning

Read More http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2009/ff_scenario_1708#ixzz0tREwBADR13

futurelab, UKfor

implementation help

WIREDfor tech visions

local trendsfor data


http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2009/ff_scenario_1708#ixzz0tREwBADR

http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2009/ff_scenario_1708#ixzz0tREwBADR

merge

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design and communicate DEFI with iPod Touch Apps

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DEFI: Digitally Enabled Futures Images


iterative design: communication pingpong tweets

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enhanced scenarios

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FUN 2020 images


enhanced scenarios

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FUN 2020 short iMovies


share FUN 2020 images

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with local community

T shirts

printed images

iPod Touch


why Futures Communication?

• We are promoting direct student engagement (confrontation even) with the futures of their current situation. Ironically Japanese companies, these bastions of corporate enslavement, also wish their new employees to communicate futures images. Yet we are certain most companies, certainly outside the Creatives Industry, do not have any true notion of what they are actually asking for and why. It is anticipated this Digitally Enabled Futures Images project will help students not necessarily re-affiliate their Japanese persona from samurai to anarchist, but become informed communicators who can autonomously strategize creative futures for self and others.

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academic value of a Futures pedagogy

• previous research.projects: Futures Employment 2028 and Hakodate 2017

• generic competencies. use of prior knowledge (98%/ 67%);new ideas (78%/ 63%);analysis (86%/ 74%).

• declarative competencies viewpoints (86%/ 85%); explanation (84%/ 78%); decision making (93%/ 81%).

• epistemic competenciescommunicating different ways of knowing realized in different expressions as multimodal, multiple media artifacts (movies, voice, text, posters, images, maps).

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Acknowledgments, etc• My question to you,please: How do YOU

think can we better help our students strategically think about their uncertain futures?

• Funding: JST, JAIST and FUN

• Reference:Vallance, M. & Wright, D.L. (2010). Japanese Students’ Digitally Enabled Futures Images: A Synergistic Approach to Developing Academic Competencies. In S. Mukerji & P. Tripathi (Eds.). Cases on Technological Adaptability and Transnational Learning: Issues and Challenges. IGI Global: Hershey, USA. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-779-4.ch009

• Thanks:Michael and David’s second year Design and Complex Systems students at FUN.

• More information and this presentation at Michael’s BLOG

http://tinyurl.com/yl6yubt22


futures toolbox

Education

establishment informs students

futures communication

communicate defi

appearances don

futures 8 sunday

students

communicate

futures