David Passig is a futurist who received his Ph.D. in Anticipatory Anthropology from the University of Minnesota. He specializes in technological futures, as well as social and educational futures. He is an Associate Professor at the Bar-Ilan University[1] in Israel. He heads the Graduate Program in Information and Communication Technology and the Virtual Reality Laboratory at the School of Education.
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Served as an advisor to the commissioner for generations at the Israeli parliament and is a member of the Israeli national comitty for research and development
He has developed a Taxonomy of Future Cognitive and Learning Skills. This Taxonomy attempts to refresh Blooms taxonomy of cognitive skills to reflect future needs. It also suggests a new thinking skill that was not included in Bloom's categories—named Melioration. It is assumed that this skill will be much required from the alumni of the schooling system in the future. This Taxonomy is being taught worldwide at teachers' colleges and MBA programs. He is developing tools with which one can measure the skill and develop it as well. The following papers represent the taxonomy of cognitive skill that he has published:
He has also developed a Future’s Research methodology named "Imen-Delphi" (ID). This methodology reflects a new paradigm in Futures' Thinking. The ID aims at structuring a procedure through which a group of experts could invent preferable futures, as opposed to the classical "Delphi" forecasting technique with which a group of experts is engaged in figuring out the most probable future. He is conducting various case studies to enhance its reliability and validity in helping various groups shaping their future imageries. The following papers represent the ID methodology in the published literature:
He has established the Virtual Reality Laboratory at the School of Ed, and he is conducting studies on various aspects of the Human User Learning Interface of Virtual Reality. His Lab is the first Lab in Israel aimed at researching and teaching Virtual Reality in Education.
He is studying also the impact of ICT interfaces on a variety of human cognitive and social aspects as well as learning processes. He is suggesting that ICT interfaces are having unexpected impact on the users awareness to a variety of cognitive phenomena. He is also suggesting that VR can enhance some cognitive skills. The following papers represent this ongoing endeavor:
He has published several books about the future - one titled: The Future Code. In this book that was in the best seller list for 25 weeks and received the Gold Prize he has developed 16 predictions about Israel in four categories: Social, national security, economics and national identity.
A second book was published in 2010 titled: 2048. In this best seller the author engage to describe the possible conflicts of the 21st century, the technologies that will drive these confrontations and how they will be reflected in the Middle east up to the mid 21st century.
In 2011 the book was also published in Turkish by kotonkitap entitled 2050