future of learning & education | Hinesight....for Foresight

I need your help in exploring the future of learning and education! Our work on the future of student needs for Lumina Foundation piqued my interest in the topic, and I suppose I should get to know more about this sector I work in now — given my position with the University of Houston Foresight program. So, after organizing a special issue last year, I agreed to join On the Horizon (OTH) as Editor-in-Chief, with a goal of sharpening the journal’s focus on the future of post-secondary learning and education.

There are some exciting possibilities for the future of learning and education — from student-centered learning to MOOCs to Edtech to funding to policy and beyond. Yet there are also many obstacles on the pathway to better futures. We want to focus on the emerging changes, the challenges, and the visions of the future and how it might be different.

My first move is to bring aboard futurist colleagues with education chops to the Editorial Advisory Board:

Bryan Alexander, publisher of Future Trends in Technology and Education
Jay Gary, Chair of the Assn of Professional Futurists and Assistant Dean of Online Programs at Oral Roberts University
Katherine Prince, Sr. Director of Strategic Foresight at Knowledge Works
Haley Glover, Strategic Director at Lumina Foundation.

The lofty vision: “to establish On the Horizon as the academic home for the future learning and education.”

The short-term tactical needs: there are plenty of these — the big four:

Writers: submit a piece on some aspect of the future of learning and education
Reviewers: review submissions to make sure they align with our future focus and provide real value to readers (looks good in the resume!)
Guest editors: we do special issues in which you organize a team of contributors to do a deep dive on a particular topic
Tipsters: let us know where the future is emerging, the hot conferences, blogs, websites, and most importantly the topics we should be covering

Email Andy Hines (ahines@uh.edu) on any of these topics! — Andy Hines

About Andy Hines

Dr. Andy Hines is Program Coordinator at the University of Houston’s Graduate Program in Foresight, bringing together the experience he earned as an organizational, consulting, and academic futurist. He is also speaking, workshopping, and consulting through his firm Hinesight.

Before that, he was Managing Director of Social Technologies/Innovaro, and served as an Adjunct Professor with the university since 2004. Hines enjoyed earlier careers as a consulting and organizational futurist. He was a partner with Coates & Jarratt, Inc., a think tank and consulting firm that specialized in the study of the future. He was also Futurist & Senior Ideation Leader at Dow Chemical with a mission of using futures tools and knowledge to turn ideas into new business opportunities. Before that, Hines established and ran the Global Trends Program for the Kellogg Company.

Hines is motivated by a professional hunger to make foresight practical and useful, and he believes that foresight can help deliver the insight that is so needed in today’s organizations and the world. His goal, he says, is to infect as many change agents as possible with this message. Thus, he has honed a skill set designed to make foresight more actionable in organizations.

In this pursuit, he has authored five books: Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight Education (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); ConsumerShift: How Changing Values Are Reshaping the Consumer Landscape (No Limits Publishing, 2011); Thinking About the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight (Social Technologies, 2007); 2025: Science and Technology Reshapes US and Global Society (Oak Hill, 1997); and Managing Your Future as an Association (ASAE, 1994) and has another in the hands of publishers: Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight Education. He has also authored dozens of articles, speeches, and workshops, including the 2003 Emerald Literati Awards’ Outstanding Paper accolade for best article published in Foresight for “An Audit for Organizational Futurists” and the 2008 award for “Scenarios: The State of the Art.” He has appeared on several radio and television programs, PBS Houston, KRIV-26 News, and the CBS “Early Show.” He also co-founded and is former Chair of the Association of Professional Futurists.

About Andy Hines

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