Anchoring Ethical Technology (AI and Data) Usage in the Education Practice
Promoting an Ethical Approach to the use of technologies, especially data and artificial intelligence (AI), in teaching and learning.
in a nutshell…
The project aims to promote an ethical approach to the use of technologies, particularly artificial intelligence and data, in teaching and learning in higher education.
The main motivation is the need to spread a more complex and articulated vision of technologies that integrates an ethical perspective, going beyond mere technological innovation.
The Problem
It starts from a critical perspective on technologies that is not widespread.
While many documents address the ethical issues of emerging and postdigital technologies
the risk is
…to embrace ethics in technology through a “checklist” approach.
Instead, these are the ideas our project follows:
Which idea of ethics?
A situated, relational, complex idea of ethics
Which idea of technology?
A non-neutral technology that is built upon cultural, social, political, and economic interests
Technical or humanist ethics?
A question along our way will be: Using more technologies to correct an ethical problem (e.g. right to privacy) or considering how humans need to rethink technological mediation (if necessary!) in their human activity?
Main Objectives
With the goal of training future educators to be aware of the ethical issues associated with technology use (ETH-TECH), the main objectives are:
Raise awareness
of the importance of an ethical perspective on technology use in training courses for future educators.
Develop practical tools
that enable institutions to assess the integration of the ETH-TECH approach, based on EU guidelines.
Support professional development
of faculty by providing open educational resources (OER) to encourage ethical practices.
Promote creative engagement
of key stakeholders through an open method for reviewing educational plans.
This approach has been supported by several European Union initiatives, such as the ethical guidelines on the use of AI and data in education published in 2022, which encouraged educators to reflect on the consequences of the digital transformation.
"ETH-TECH is our answer: it's not enough to talk about ethics in AI and data—we must turn ideas into action and redefine education for a more just and informed digital society"
