“There are a LOT of moral issues with biowearables” ... Teaching Design Ethics through a Critical Making Biowearable Workshop

Abstract

There has been an increasing focus on teaching youth about design ethics as part of technical literacy. Biowearables are an emerging technology in which devices worn on children's bodies are used to track, monitor and provide feedback about their biological processes. In this paper we describe an online critical making workshop designed to enable students in middle school years to develop technical literacy skills that include reflection on issues related to design ethics. We investigated if and how our workshop enabled eleven youth, aged 12-14, to reflect through processes of making their own biowearable, on potential negative impacts of biowearables on their developing senses of identity, agency, autonomy and authenticity. The workshop elements included facilitated activities using custom created biowearable-tangible kit and ethics cards. Through qualitative coding and thematic analysis of moments of reflection captured with video, chat, and design journals we gathered evidence of the feasibility of promoting critical making as a means to cultivate technical literacy in youth. Our findings suggest the potential of teaching design ethics through critical making workshops and reveal a range of ways that reflection on ethical issues can be supported during making. We interpret our empirical evidence to further explore how workshop elements supported, or failed to support, learning outcomes and generalize our interpretations to propose preliminary guidance about workshop mechanisms that might be used to support ethical reflection during making.

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