Futures toolbox

The Futures Studies Toolbox + iPod Touch: Digitally
Enabled Futures Images for the Japanese University
2020 Project.

Michael Vallance
David 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
A typical university classroom “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).

looks like a typical High School classroom 6

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
DEFI:
Digitally
Enabled
Futures
Images

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futures toolbox
SWOT
STEEPV
LASWELL’S COMMUNICATION FORMULA
BACK CASTING
FUTURES TRIANGLE ANALYSIS
SCENARIOS

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FUN 2020
 1. Society – what will you communicate to Hakodate and the
world?
 2. Technology – what technology should FUN use? FTA
 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. Mogi
1. 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 have
on you?/ on other people?/ on Future University?
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resource examples
futurelab, UK
for
implementation
help

WIRED
for tech local trends
visions for data

Your Future in 5 Easy Steps: Wired Guide to Personal Scenario Planning
13 Read More http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2009/ff_scenario_1708#ixzz0tREwBADR


merge

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design and communicate DEFI with
iPod Touch Apps

DEFI:
Digitally
Enabled
Futures
Images

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iterative design: communication
pingpong tweets

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enhanced scenarios
FUN 2020 images

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enhanced scenarios
FUN 2020 short iMovies

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share FUN 2020 images
with local community

printed images

T shirts iPod Touch

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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 competencies
communicating 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/ yl6yubt
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