• A nice way of relating futures terms in a picturesque way --

"Let us assume you are standing on the bridge of a ship. You scan the horizon (Horizon Scanning) and see an iceberg and your supply ship. You work out the likely speeds and direction of the iceberg and supply ship (trend analysis) and put the information into the ship’s computer (modelling) and then plot a course (roadmapping) so that you meet with the supply ship and not the iceberg. While you are doing this you dream of eating some nice chocolate that you hope is on the supply ship (visioning).

You realise that the speeds and directions of the iceberg and the supply ship might change, so you work out the range of options to make sure you have the greatest chance of meeting the supply ship (scenarios). Even with all of this planning, you know there is a chance of the unexpected and hitting the iceberg so you get the crew to do an evacuation drill (gaming). While they are doing it, you work back from the most likely future position of the supply ship to work out the steps you need to get there (backcasting).33"

The citation is from Office of Science and Innovation, Strategic Futures Planning: Suggestions for success: A toolkit, www.foresight.gov.uk. as quoted in Governing the Future: Second Report of Session 2006-07, Volume 1, House of Commons, Public Administration Select Committee, Published on March 6 2007, London: The Stationery House Ltd., 49 pp., p. 13

From Catherine Cosgrove, adviser to the Premier of Quebec and advanced student in futures studies at the University of Houston.

I really like this quote, but I would have put the backcasting earlier in the process, like between trend analysis and modeling. And I wish the visioning had been something more substantial than chocolate cake, though I guess that chocolate is quite substantial in some people's lives! Nevertheless, a nice way of relating the concepts -- Peter Bishop, University of Houston

• Jennifer Gidley, Debra Batemen, and Caroline Smith, "Futures in Education: Principles, practice and potential," Australian Foresight Institute, Swinburne University of Technology, Monograph Series No. 5, 2004. An extensive analysis of foresight in the curriculum within Australian elementary and secondary schools.
  
• Richard Slaughter, "Futures Education: Catalyst for our time," in Alternative Educational Futures:Pedagogies For Emergent Worlds, by Marcus Bussey, Sohail Inayatullah and Ivana Milojević (eds.), Sense Publishers, 2008. Richard Slaughter's experience of introducing futures thinking to public schools in Australia.
• "The Art of Foresight," World Futures Society. A great introduction to foresight for classes at all levels, contributed by Marcy Norwood, Consumer Science, University of Houston.
  

On Foresight Education

• Richard Slaughter, Futures Education: Why We Need to Teach for Tomorrow, Center for Peace Studies, 1983.
• Jim Dator, Advancing Futures: Futures Studies in Higher Education, Praeger, 2002.
• David Hicks, Lessons for the Future: The Missing Dimension in Education, Trafford, 2006.
• Jill Loukides and Lawrie Gardner, Building the Future: A Workbook to Accompany Futuring: The Exploration of the Future, World Future Society, 2006.
• Richard Slaughter and Marcus Bussy, Futures Thinking for Social Foresight, Foresight International.
  

• Arthur Shostak, Anticipate the School You Want: Futurizing K-12 Education, Rowan and Littlefield Education, 2008.

Special offer from Art Shostak:

While the publisher's ad cites a paperback price of $25, I can provide paperback copies of Anticipate the School You Want - a one-of-its-kind publication - for $20 each plus $5 Shipping and Handling for the first copy, and $1 S&H cost (plus $20 each) for any number of other copies (this is my cost from the company).

Purchase requests should be e-mailed to me at shostaka@drexel.edu - and orders for several copies (excellent gifts for rising administrators and teachers of special merit) are especially welcomed.

Futures Survey abstracts Anticipate the School You Want, by Art Shostak
Michael Marien says, "Brimming with ideas and enthusiasm, and open to a broad range of values and methods." See the complete abstract below.

Foundational books in foresight

• Wendell Bell, Foundations of Futures Studies, Vol I: Human Science for a New Era: History, Purposes, Knowledge, Transaction, 2003.
• Edward Cornish, Futuring: The Exploration of the Future, World Future Society, 2005
• Richard A Slaughter (ed), The Knowledge Base of Futures Studies, Foresight International, 2005, CD-ROM
• Thomas Lombardo, Contemporary Futurist Thought: Science Fiction, Future Studies, and Theories and Visions of the Future in the Last Century, AuthorHouse, 2006.

Exercises from the Institute for the Future at Anne Arundel Community College.

Superstruct IFTF
Play the Game
Gamers’ scores will reflect personal role in humankind’s survival Palo Alto, CA - (Sept 22, 2008) — The Institute for the Future (IFTF) announced today the launch of Superstruct, the world’s first Massively Multiplayer Forecasting Game (MMFG).

Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe - an approach to developing curriculum materials, widely used, but quite complex in its full approach. The barest elements, however, are useful for establishing learning objectives for a specific course such as 1) terms or concepts, 2) propositions or understandings, 3) provocative questions, and 4) activities crossing four basic topics in foresight -- change, methods, forecasting change and creating change (planning or leadership). The material on change would be the fundamental for any foresight course. --contributed by Peter Bishop

World Map of Futures Organizations -- an unbelievably impressive collection of futures organizations by continent and country assembled by foresight educator Samuel Bohman.

Our friends in the Mendoza College of Business at Notre Dame (Tom Frecka, Jay McIntosh and Margot O'Brien) are piloting an undergraduate futures course to be required of all business majors there.. They have included this great set of videos from Erik Peterson at the Center for Strategic and International Studies called The Seven Revolutions -- population, resource management, technology, knowledge, economic integration, conflict and governance.

Canada@150 -- Peter Bishop introducing futures thinking to a group of Canadian civil servants who are investigating policy challenges for Canada in preparation for its 150th anniversary.

• practical guidance on how-to accomplish specific foresight tasks,
• information and examples of best and next practice,
• advice on designing strategic foresight projects and programmes,
• a reference guide,
• a refresher and reminder of ways to approach different issues,
• the ingredients to achieve successful outcomes and observable improvements,
• the potential to create 'disruptive' innovation, and
  
• bulleted check-lists to remind, provoke, and ensure completeness.