ARE WE IN THE DIGITAL DARK TIMES? HOW THE PHILOSOPHY OF HANNAH ARENDT CAN ILLUMINATE SOME OF THE ETHICAL DILEMMAS POSED BY MODERN DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES

Philosophers are not generally credited with being clairvoyant, and yet because they recognise, record and reflect on trends in their society, their observations can often appear prescient. In the field of the ethics of technology, there is, perhaps, no philosopher whose perspective on these issues is worth examining in detail more than that of Hannah Arendt, who can offer real perspective on the challenges we are facing with technologies in the twenty-first century. Arendt, a thinker of Jewish-German origin, student of Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, encountered her life turning point when she was forced into becoming a refugee as the world was shaken by a force of unimaginable brutality that she was one of the first to name “totalitarianism” (Baerh, 2010). She was an independent thinker, separating herself from schools of thought or ideology. Investigating totalitarianism was her ruling passion, and as such her political thought often overshadows her major contribution to other branches of philosophy. Arendt is best known for her accounts of Adolf Eichmann and his trial, and the concept of “banality of evil”, though her perspective on politics was driven by a precise and original theory of action. While the latter is inextricably connected to her political perspective, it is also supported by a sharp ontological reflection of social structures and anthropological reflections

The Development of a Template for Structuring Case Studies about Blended Learning, and an Associated Evaluation Check Sheet

The Blended Learning International Train the Train Project is focused on the development of a training programme to equip teachers to become proficient in the training others in Blended Learning, which is an approach to teaching that combines online teaching with face-to-face teaching; and aims to leverage the benefits of both. The programme will be developed in two phases, in the first phase a series of case studies relevant to Blended Learning will be developed, followed by a second phase where the training programme with be designed and developed. In developing the blended learning case studies, two key documents were identified as being essential, first, a template to indicate the main headings for the case studies, and, second, a checksheet tool with a number of questions to help undertake reflection on the case studies. These two documents provide a coherent and organized way to structure the case studies

All Things Merge into One, and a River Runs Through It: Exploring the Dimensions of Blended Learning by Developing a Case Study Template for Blended Activities

The BLITT (Blended Learning International Train the Trainer) Project is focused on developing a training programme to equip teachers to become proficient in championing the use of Blended Learning in the classroom. The training programme will be developed in two phases, in the first phase involves the development of a series of case studies relevant to Blended Learning, followed by a second phase where the BLITT training programme will be designed and developed, using input from these cases. In developing the blended learning case studies, two key documents were identified as being essential, first, a case study tracking template to idenitfiying the main reporting headings for the case studies (including looking at Blended Learning from the points-of-view of Security, Accessibility, and Costs), and second, a case study checksheet tool with a number of questions to help undertake reflection on the case studies to assist in completing the template. These two documents provide a coherent and organized way to structure the case studies, and their development is described in this work

INCORPORATING DIGITAL ETHICS THROUGHOUT THE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

The media is reporting scandals associated with computer companies with increasing regularity; whether it is the misuse of user data, breach of privacy concerns, the use of biased artificial intelligence, or the problems of automated vehicles. Because of these complex issues, there is a growing need to equip computer science students with a deep appreciation of ethics, and to ensure that in the future they will develop computer systems that are ethically-based. One particularly useful strand of their education to incorporate ethics into is when teaching them about the formal approaches to developing computer systems. There are a number of specific processes and methodologies that incorporate these stages in different ways into their approaches. Some take a linear approach to these stages, whereas others take a more iterative and/or incremental approach. These models include the Waterfall Model, the V-Model, the Spiral Model, and the Agile family of models. For each of these models this paper will present a way to include ethics in the Specifying stage, and well as threaded throughout the model, and as an explicit stage in a final review process at the end of the implementation stage. These formal models are understood (and used) by computer companies all over the world, and therefore are a natural means of incorporating ethics into software development in a manner that would not seem overly arduous or unwieldy to developers. These techniques are also taught in the computer science departments of universities all over the world, it is therefore vitally important that lecturers incorporate an ethical dimension into their systems development teaching, and we believe that these newly refined models provide them with a simple means of achieving this task, and this will make a new generation of software developers ethically-aware

Minding the Gap: Computing Ethics and the Political Economy of Big Tech

In 1988 Michael Mahoney wrote that “[w]hat is truly revolutionary about the computer will become clear only when computing acquires a proper history, one that ties it to other technologies and thus uncovers the precedents that make its innovations significant” (Mahoney, 1988). Today, over thirty years after this quote was written, we are living right in the middle of the information age and computing technology is constantly transforming modern living in revolutionary ways and in such a high degree that is giving rise to many ethical considerations, dilemmas, and social disruption. To explore the myriad of issues associated with the ethical challenges of computers using the lens of political economy it is important to explore the history and development of computer technology

Ethics4eu: Designing New Curricula For Computer Science Ethics Education: Case Studies For Ai Ethics

The computing ethics landscape is changing rapidly, as new technologies become more complex and pervasive, and people choose to interact with them in new and distinct ways. The resultant interactions are more novel and less easy to categorise using traditional ethical frameworks. It is important that developers of these technologies do not live in an ethical vacuum, that they think about the consequences of their creations, and take measures to prevent others being harmed by their work. To equip developers to rise to this challenge and create a positive future for the use of technology, it important that ethics becomes a central element of computer science education. To this end, the Ethics4EU project has developed curricula on a wide range of topics including privacy and agency of personal information, digital literacy, data governance and accountability, surveillance applications, algorithmic decision and automating human intelligence for robotics and autonomous vehicles. Crucially the content examines computing ethics, not only in terms of hardware and software, but how systems, people, organisations and society interact with technology.In this paper, we present our interdisciplinary approach to developing educational content for AI Ethics. This includes accessible teaching materials, in-class activities, sample assessments, practical guidelines and instructor guides. We discuss findings of an evaluation of the developed content with undergraduate computer science students

You Can\u27t Lose a Game If You Don\u27t Play the Game: Exploring the Ethics of Gamification in Education

Gamification has been hailed as a meaningful solution to the perennial challenge of sustaining student attention in class. It uses facets of gameplay in an educational context, including things such as points, leaderboards and badges. These are clearly efforts to make the student experience more entertaining and engaging, but nonetheless, they are also clearly digital nudges and attempts to change the students’ behaviours and attitudes to a specific set of concepts, and in which case they must, and should, be subject to the same ethical scrutiny as any other form of persuasion technique, as they may be unintentionally eroding the choices that students feel they have. This research therefore discusses some of the key ethical considerations and concerns associated with gamification, and presents a new framework that incorporates ethical tests into each stage of a pre-existing model of instructional design, that can be used when introducing gamification into an educational process

The World is Our Classroom: Developing a Model for International Virtual Internships - the Global Innovations Project

In the aftermath of COVID-19, remote working has become the norm, and graduates now need an even wider range of skills, which traditional classrooms and internships do not always provide. Working in multiple time zones, within global multi-cultural teams, and only ever meeting colleagues through online technology are just some of the challenges, which require a new type of global graduate. Transversal skills including leadership, collaboration, innovation, digital, green, organization and communication skills are critical. The disruption from COVID-19 also presents unprecedented opportunities to develop more inclusive approaches to internships and international experiences, to level the playing field for students with special needs, from underrepresented groups or with caring commitments. In this position paper, we present a new Global Innovation internship model that has the aim of allowing students to complete technology internships and projects by working together virtually on real world challenges, guided by experienced industry and academic mentors. The model is being developed as part of an Erasmus+ funded project, and the partnership includes seven Higher Education Institutions from six different countries around the world. This position paper describes the design and development of a pilot programme of the Global Innovations internship model