The Dutch research project “Wijs met techniek” (Tech-Wise) explores ethics education from a tool-based, practical perspective. Especially if and how practical tools for ethical deliberation on the impact of technology can be helpful in ethics education for engineering students. The approach is first intended as a variation on theories in ethics and technology. Secondly, the approach uses a focus on the impact of technology as a way toward ethical deliberation. Both characteristics are intended to better appeal to engineering students. In the project we cover three levels of higher education: a University, a University of Applied Sciences and a School for Vocational Training. Together we are developing and testing a suite of activating working methods that can be tailored to various engineering programmes. A first result of this is the simple workshop format “ethics for engineers”, consisting of five steps with four effective ingredients. In this paper we present the general format of this workshop and dive in particular into a specific instance of the workshop called “Wonderberries”. The experiences from the workshop show that with a carefully chosen combination of engaging orientation, a specific ‘technology’ and a concrete design exercise the ethical questions and subsequent deliberation and reflection can be very rich.
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"The World of the [open] innovator" described the background of the revolution we are in in innovation and what the consequences are for innovation, changing towards design driven open innovation. We reframed innovation to meet new needs and values of companies and organizations in our work field. We do not take this light-hearted. We know the field of innovation and used our experience and conversation with stakeholders to come up with the insight of The [open] Innovator. What strengthened us were reactions from companies and organization we asked to cocreate or participate. There seemed to be an instant recognition and appeal to our vision and approach. But we also realize that we are in the stage of prototyping and we need you, as our lead users to be critical, yet to trust us. You, being an [open] innovator, will do great wonders, because you will be taught to deal with this uncertainty and dig in new, unknown situations or problems. You will learn the tools for research, for communication, for visualization. You will become a cooperative, open-minded problem solver. You will be able - with all the skills and tools we will provide you - to make the difference. But we need you to reflect upon your progress and needs; help us to get an insight in to your uncertainties, values and unmet needs, to enable us to improve our thinking and teaching. However, innovation can only be learned by doing! Start cracking, start experimenting, start having fun. Welcome to the future, that has just started.
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The scope of technology has expanded towards areas such as sports and vitality, offering significant challenges for engineering designers. However, only little is known about the underlying design and engineering processes used within these fields. Therefore, this paper aims to get an indepth understanding of these type of processes. During a three-day design competition (Hackathon), three groups of engineers were challenged to develop experience-able prototypes in the field of sports and vitality. Their process was monitored based on the Reflective Transformative Design process (RTD-process) framework, describing the various activities part of the design process. Groups had to keep track of their activities, and six group reflection-sessions were held. Results show that all groups used an open and explorative approach, they frequently swapped between activities, making them able to reflect on their actions. While spending more time on envisioning and creating a clear vision seem to relate to the quality of the design concept.
