A presentation on Futures perspectives on Schools and Learning.

1. WFUNA Millennium Project
New Institiutional host with the
World Federation of United Nations Associations
Recently Expanded to
31 Nodes Trans-Institutional in Organization
The Millennium Project of WFUNA is a global participatory futures research think
tank of futurists, scholars, business planners, and policy makers who work for
international organizations, governments, corporations, NGOs, and universities.
Futures Methodologies & Global Foresight Research

2. The Millennium Projects Annual Publication
The State of the Future
…invaluable insights
into the future for
the UN, States, and
civil society.
--- Ban Ki-moon
Secretary-General
United Nations
Enclosed CD contains over 6,000 pages

3. Types of Futurists
Mainstream Futurists Marginal Futurists Non Futurists
• The Synoptic Generalist
• The Futurized Specialist • The Pseudo-Futurist
• The General Forecaster
• The Closet Futurist • The Straw-Man Futurist
• The Normative Generalist • The Future Futurist
• The Pop Futurist • The Forgotten Futurist
• The Multi-Identify Futurist
• The Specialized Futurist

4. WHAT ARE
FUTURISTS
WRITING ABOUT
• GLOBAL WARMING
• RATES OF CHANGE
• TURNING POINTS
• CHAOS POINTS
• DARK AGES AHEAD
• MACRO-SHIFT

5. Just 25 years ago, there was no…
• Internet, WWW, PCs, or mobile phones
• Euros, WTO, or NATO in Afghanistan
• Talk of globalization, genetically modified food, stem cells, or
AIDS pandemic
• WWW Augmented Asymmetric warfare
• … and most believed that a nuclear WW III
would have destroyed the world by now

6. It is not only Korea, accelerating rates of S
change have impacted most of the planet. I
In mathematics, the point where the value of an otherwise finite
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A
H
400,000,000
and continuous function becomes infinite is called a quot;singularity,
the point where all mathematical modelling breaks down.
U
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E
300,000,000
A
200,000,000 R
100,000,000
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81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 E
S

7. 2050
2025
2007
Wikipedia

8. The Future will be more
…than most people think
Acceleration of change...
…changes what we believe is possible
Ubiquitous computing, nano-bio-Info technology, and
cognitive science
…accelerates that acceleration

9. … and the next 15-25 years?
• With falling birth rates much of the work force with be older people AND Robots.
• Lines of genetic code written like software code to create new forms of life, some
merges with computational intelligence (AI)
• Epigenetics changes one generation to the next, safer than genetic engineering
• More than half the world spends more than half its time in cyberspace being more
“real” that 3D reality - cyber space blurring distinctions
• Life extension begins to look like a realistic option
• 3-D printing of human organs, and other things
• Conscious-Technology becomes an HR Focus

10. Futures Research Methods
Integral Futures and the Soft Side of Futures Methodologies

11. Roots of Futures Methodologies
Pre History • Ancient Times • Middle Ages Modern Era Meta Industrial Era
Pantheism Science & Religion Positivism TransPersonal
Visionaries Visionaries
Divination Utopians Visionaries
• Descartes • Oscar Ichazo
• Shamanism, • Mercier • Arthur Clarke
• DaVinci • John Lilly
• Mythology, • • Bucky Fuller
• Newton • W.I.Thompson
• Taoism Condorcet
• Pascal Futuribles • Willis Harman
• Oracle Delphi • Turgot
• B. de Jouvenel • Mark Markley
Philosophers • Dennis Gabor
• Fourier ScienceFiction Integral Futures
• Comte • H.G. Wells, Futures Research • Ken Wilber
• Marx • Jules Verne • Club of Rome • R. Slaughter
• Hudson Institute • S. Inayatullah

12. Modern Roots of the Transpersonal
• Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way
• De Chardin’s Noosphere
• Ichazo’s Arica Institute
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
• Grof’s Altered States of Consciousness
• Jung’s Collective Unconscious

13. Types of Futures
Methodologies
We will draw two broad distinctions
Quantitative Exploratory Qualitative Normative
• Typically inspired by analytic • Typically inspired by moral,
empirisist thinking humanistic, & appreciative
inquiry. Integral Futures.

14. Futures Research Methods
Best Suited to Integral / Soft Side Approaches
• The Futures Wheel
• Scenarios
• Participatory Methods
• Simulation and Games
• Genius Forecasting,Vision, and Intuition
• Normative Forecasting
• The Multiple Perspective Concept
• Causal Layered Analysis

15. Integral Influences in
Engineering Education
An NSF vision of the ideal Engineering Curriculm
• Rustum Roy’s STS programs
University of Pennsylvania’s Materials
Scientist “Rusty” Roy spear-headed a widely
adopted Science Technology and Society
program.
• The WPI Plan
Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s dramatic
shift to it’s now famous WPI Plan for
Project Centered Engineering Education

16. The WPI Plan
• MQP Major Qualifying Project
• Real World Experience
• IQP Interactive Qualifying Project in Humanities
• Highly Collabarative & Interdisciplinary
• Student Designed Major

17. Future Learning & Education
Possibilities by the year 2030
An international Assessment of 19 possibilities as to:
1. What might make the possibility a reality
2. What would be the positive effects of each
3. What might prevent the possibility
4. If it does occur, how might it have negative impacts

18. Learning & Education Possibilities 2030
1. National programs for improving collective and individual intelligence
2. Just in time knowledge and learning
3. Individualized education
4. Use of VR simulations
5. Continuous evaluation to prevent instability and/or becoming mentally ill.
6. Improved individual nutrition
7. Genetically increased intelligence
8. Use of global on-line simulations as a primary social science research
9. Use of public communications to reinforce pursuit of knowledge.
10. Portable artificial intelligence
11. Complete mapping of human synapses to discover how learning occurs
12. Means for keeping adult brains healthier for longer
13. Chemistry for brain enhancement
14. Web 17.0
15. Integrated life-long learning systems
16. Programs aimed at eliminating prejudice and hate
17. e- Teaching
18. Smarter than human
19. Artificial microbes enhance intelligence

19. Virtual Reality-continues to grow
CYBER Town
www.cybertown.com

20. Virtual Working in audio space, video space,
several kinds of cyberspace and 3
Worlds Dimensional Space at the same time
Text
Text
Text
http://www.jvrb.org
www.jvrb.org

21. 3-D Multi-User Virtual Worlds
• Good News
• Bad News

22. A Quick
Travelogue
Through a
Variety of
Virtual
Worlds
--------
These are all
3D Multi-
User Worlds,
Not
Illustrations

23. How to Create
Collective Intelligence
• Combine people, software, hardware, and information into a
system that learns though feedback and that makes better
decisions than the separate elements
• Two examples:
• Futures Intelligence Scanning System
• Just in Time Collective Intelligence

24. Futures S&T Intelligence System
Press Releases Key Word
Monitor Specific Conferences Key Persons
Newsletters Internet
Websites Seminars Tracking
Journals Searching
SCANNING
Analysis & Synthesis
Individual Staff Management
Weblog
Feedback Database
&
New Requirements Decisions
Management Future Oriented understanding and learning

25. Just in Time Collective Intelligence
USER example
Politician during
a Hearing
Staff
Collective Intl.
System Integrating
live experts and data
bases
Other sources Knowledge
Live Experts base+mashup
On-Line data bases

26. Psychological Fixation Blocks Creativity & Vision
Making it hard to adapt to such rapid change
Examples of Functional Fixedness:
• Using steam to pump water to water wheels instead
of driving the mill directly
• Including buggy whip holders on the first automobiles
• Constraining computer mediated communications to
function like regular mail.
• Using multi media to produce interactive Books and
Movies or otherwise emulate existing media.
• Comparing Cyberspace to the Interstate Highway System
Familiar Metaphors encourage Functional Fixedness

27. Functional Fixedness
A Legacy of Positivist Thinking that is one of the
Greatest Barriers to Mastering the Soft Methodologies

28. Human/Organizational Challenges
• The Hanover Principles
• Focus on Meaning & Purpose
• SOCBED (Self Organizing
Community-Based Economic
Development
• Convolving Space & Cyberspace
• Lessons for Planning New Cities

29. The Hannover Principles of Sustainable Development by William McDonough
1. Insist on rights of humanity and nature to co-exist
in a healthy, supportive, diverse and sustainable condition.
2. Recognize interdependence.
The elements of human design interact with and depend upon the natural world, with broad and diverse implications at every scale. Expand design considerations to recognizing even distant effects.
3. Respect relationships between spirit and matter.
Consider all aspects of human settlement including community, dwelling, industry and trade in terms of existing and evolving connections between spiritual and material consciousness.
4. Accept responsibility for the consequences of design decisions
upon human well-being, the viability of natural systems, and their right to co-exist.
5. Create safe objects of long-term value.
Do not burden future generations with requirements for maintenance of vigilant administration of potential danger due to the careless creation of products, processes or standards.
6. Eliminate the concept of waste.
Evaluate and optimize the full life-cycle of products and processes, to approach the state of natural systems, in which there is no waste.
7. Rely on natural energy flows.
Human designs should, like the living world, derive their creative forces from perpetual solar income. Incorporate the energy efficiently and safely for responsible use.
8. Understand the limitations of design.
No human creation lasts forever and design does not solve all problems. Those who create and plan should practice humility in the face of nature. Treat nature as a model
and mentor, not and inconvenience to be evaded or controlled.
9. Seek constant improvement by the sharing of knowledge.
Encourage direct and open communication between colleagues, patrons, manufacturers and users to link long term sustainable considerations with ethical
responsibility, and re-establish the integral relationship between natural processes and human activity.

30. Refocus on Human Meaning & Purpose
Broaden the bandwidth of communication technology to
encourage emergent communication & organization styles

31. Abraham Maslow’s
Self Actualization
Hierachy of Needs Is Not An End Point
But a Self Renewing Drive
A Humanistic Guide
to Homo Digitalis
From Survival to Self Actualization
A Template for specifying design
parameters for new technologies
to ensure the emergence of
Humanism in the Digital World.

32. Group Methodologies
Require Unusual
Environments
For Best Results
• Temporary Autonomous Zones
• Open Space Technology Meetings
• Adventure Theater
• SYNCONS

33. Cultivating the Network of Minds
• Learning Community/
Appreciative Systems
• Storytelling - Indigenous
Wisdom
• Transpersonal &
Quantum Metaphors
• Multi-Spectral Work Place
Environments
• T. Autonomous Zones

34. Adventure Participatory Methodology
based on principles of Social Architecture.
Theater
110 Executives from
Sprint experience a
4 day adventure in a
remote Sedona,
setting.

35. Cultivating the Mind of the Network
• Self Org. Community
Based Economic Dev.
• Social Network Agents
• Active Packets -
Beneficial Viruses
• Convolving Cyber and
Physical Spaces
• Serious Games...

36. Emerging Maps of Ubiquitous Convolved Cyber-Space
Fully
Convolved
MetaVerse
A visual taxonomy of different modes of communication and
interaction created by designer Nathan Shedroff

37. Cultivating Emergent Business Models
• Maruyama’s Morpho-
Genetic Joint Ventures
• Open Source- Cathedral
& the Bazaar, Clue Train
Manifesto
• Temporary Autonomous
Zones as Incubators
• Positive Sum Serious
Games, Increasing
Returns

38. SOCBED Research Methodology
Self Organizing Community
Based Economic Development
A Participatory Futures
WayFinders Cybercafe &
Community Visioning Center
A learning community
action research experiment
in Maui, Hawaii. Starring the
Ke Ala Hoku children’s Vision
for Hawaii’s Future.

39. “The way forward is paradoxically to look not ahead but to look around”
- John Seeley Brown

40. Beyond New Urbanism - Transforming & Reinventing Korean Cities
Reviving PassionDecline
Korean Population for Life
Decreasing Population Means
Leads to Major Shifts in
At Current Birthrates
“SignificantRedefiningSpace
problems cannot
Radically in Vacant Space
Cyberspace & Real
Increase
Real Estatethe go out inUse.
Value and Seoul
be solved atslowlysame level of
As the Lights in New Forms
Combine created them.”
The Meta-Industrial Village
thinking that
Work As Humanities
FamilyNew
To Create -Albert Einstein
Emerges A
Community On
Open Source
New Footprint
Planet Living on
Earth
Patterns of of Thinking
Economy based
New Ways
Peopleware
About Cities & Communities
Lead to New Meaning & Purpose
Male Female

41. Dawn of a New Era
“We find ourselves at the end of one
era, and not yet at the beginning of a
new one.
We are the citizens of closing times,
and this makes us pioneers of opening
time, bridge builders and architects,
the ones who will make it happen. “
- Jean Houston