Loneliness and social isolation are increasingly recognized as important challenges of our times. Inspired by research hinting at beneficial effects of interacting with nature on social connectedness and opportunities provided by ambient technology to simulate nature in a rich and engaging manner, this study explored to what extent digital nature projections can stimulate social aspirations and related emotions. To this end, participants (N = 96) were asked to watch, individually or in pairs, digital nature projections consisting of animated scenes which were either dense or spacious and depicting either wild or tended nature. Subsequently, they filled out a questionnaire comprising measures for social aspirations, awe and fascination. Results show that spacious scenes elicited significantly higher social aspiration and awe scores, especially when watching alone. Design implications are discussed for making digital nature accessible for people with limited access to real nature.
Can you remember the last time the ground gave way beneath you? When you thought the ground was stable, but for some reason it wasn’t? Perhaps you encountered a pothole on the streets of Amsterdam, or you were renovating your house and broke through the floor. Perhaps there was a molehill in a park or garden. You probably had to hold on to something to steady yourself. Perhaps you even slipped or fell. While I sincerely hope that nobody here was hurt in the process, I would like you to keep that feeling in your mind when reading what follows. It is the central theme of the words that will follow. The ground beneath our feet today is not as stable as the streets of Amsterdam, your park around the corner or even a poorly renovated upstairs bedroom. This is because whatever devices we use and whatever pathways we choose, we all live in hybrid physical and digital social spaces (Kitchin and Dodge 2011). Digital social spaces can be social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook, but also chat apps like WhatsApp or Signal. Crucially, social spaces are increasingly hybrid, in which conversations take place across digital spaces (WhatsApp chat group) and physical spaces (meeting friends in a cafe) simultaneously. The ground beneath our feet is not made of concrete or stone or wood but of bits and bytes.
Privacy, copyright, classified documents and state secrets, but also spontaneous network phenomena like flash mobs and hashtag revolutions, reveal one thing – we lost control over the digital world. We experience a digital tailspin, or as Michael Seemann calls it in this essay: a loss of control or Kontrollverlust. Data we never knew existed is finding paths that were not intended and reveals information that we would never have thought of on our own. Traditional institutions and concepts of freedom are threatened by this digital tailspin. But that doesn’t mean we are lost. A new game emerges, where a different set of rules applies. To take part, we need to embrace a new way of thinking and a radical new ethics – we need to search for freedom in completely different places. While the Old Game depended upon top-down hierarchies and a trust in the protective power of state justice systems, the New Game asks you to let go of all these certainties. Strategies to play the game of digital tailspin rely on flexibility, openness, transparency and what is dubbed ‘antifragility’. In Digital Tailspin: Ten Rules for the Internet After Snowden Michael Seemann examines which strategies are most appropriate in the New Game and why.
Mobiele netwerken vormen een drijvende kracht achter de digitalisering van onze samenleving en het verdienvermogen in alle sectoren van de economie, van industrie en energie tot logistiek en zorg. Nederlandse bedrijven zien grote kansen in 6G netwerktechnologie en toepassingen die vanaf 2030 op de markt komen. De gerichte ontwikkeling van 6G kan daarnaast sterk bijdragen aan de Nederlandse en Europese ambities op het gebied van digitale autonomie en duurzaamheid.
Teachers have a crucial role in bringing about the extensive social changes that are needed in the building of a sustainable future. In the EduSTA project, we focus on sustainability competences of teachers. We strengthen the European dimension of teacher education via Digital Open Badges as means of performing, acknowledging, documenting, and transferring the competencies as micro-credentials. EduSTA starts by mapping the contextual possibilities and restrictions for transformative learning on sustainability and by operationalising skills. The development of competence-based learning modules and open digital badge-driven pathways will proceed hand in hand and will be realised as learning modules in the partnering Higher Education Institutes and badge applications open for all teachers in Europe.Societal Issue: Teachers’ capabilities to act as active facilitators of change in the ecological transition and to educate citizens and workforce to meet the future challenges is key to a profound transformation in the green transition.Teachers’ sustainability competences have been researched widely, but a gap remains between research and the teachers’ practise. There is a need to operationalise sustainability competences: to describe direct links with everyday tasks, such as curriculum development, pedagogical design, and assessment. This need calls for an urgent operationalisation of educators’ sustainability competences – to support the goals with sustainability actions and to transfer this understanding to their students.Benefit to society: EduSTA builds a community, “Academy of Educators for Sustainable Future”, and creates open digital badge-driven learning pathways for teachers’ sustainability competences supported by multimodal learning modules. The aim is to achieve close cooperation with training schools to actively engage in-service teachers.Our consortium is a catalyst for leading and empowering profound change in the present and for the future to educate teachers ready to meet the challenges and act as active change agents for sustainable future. Emphasizing teachers’ essential role as a part of the green transition also adds to the attractiveness of teachers’ work.
ADAS- Monitor Advanced Driver Assistent Systems (ADAS) worden gezien als een middel om de verkeersveiligheidsstreefdoelstellingen uit het Strategisch Plan Verkeersveiligheid 2030 en de Europese beleidsstukken te behalen. Naast de veelal technische uitdagingen en ontwikkelingen die ADAS momenteel doormaken, wordt in de breedte van de automotive sector benadrukt dat het gebruik en de bekendheid van ADAS bij automobilisten te wensen overlaat waardoor de potentie van ADAS voor de verkeersveiligheid niet optimaal wordt benut. De ADAS alliantie , een samenwerking van meer dan 60 bedrijven, overheden en kennisinstellingen, heeft als doel gesteld het (veilig)gebruik van ADAS met 20% te bevorderen. Echter, ontbreekt actuele informatie met betrekking tot de bekendheid van, het vertrouwen in en het daadwerkelijke gebruik door automobilisten. In dit onderzoek staat de periodieke monitoring van de gebruikersadaptatie centraal waarbij de bekendheid van, de acceptatie, het percentage daadwerkelijk gebruik van ADAS door automobilisten wordt gepresenteerd doormiddel van een (digitaal) dashboard. Een divers samengesteld consortium voert het onderzoek uit en maakt daarbij gebruik van een groter netwerk om de benodigde data te vergaren en voor disseminatie. Het onderzoek bestaat uit een werkpakket waarin de gebruikersadapatie doormiddel van vragenlijstonderzoek wordt vastgesteld en een werkpakket waarin iteratief het concept ontwerp leidt tot een prototype dashboard. Het resultaat van dit onderzoek is een werkend prototype van een ADAS-dashboard. Wanneer het prototype wordt vertaalt naar een definitief ontwerp, blijft het tot vijf jaar na presentatie geüpdatet met recente data. Het ADAS-dashboard bevat een visuele en digitale weergave van het onderzoek naar het gebruikersperspectief en wordt indien gewenst uitgebreid met andere relevante data. Wanneer het ADAS dashboard is gerealiseerd, kan het zowel voor beleidsmakers en bedrijven ingezet worden om keuzes te onderbouwen of om ontwikkelingen op te baseren als ook om communicatiestrategieën te ontwikkelen waarmee het gebruik wordt bevorderd.