Ethics as a Gateway to Computer Science in Primary Education

This paper presents a proposal to bring ethics and ICT closer to students of the first courses of the primary education, supporting one in each other, following the Law “Real Decreto 126/2014, 28th of February”, which establishes the basic curriculum for Primary Education. Within this Law, two of seven skills in the curriculum are established: digital skill (the third) and also social and civic skills (the fifth). Given the digital natives population who are receiving education, it would be a slightly more ambitious goal to be able to glimpse them to support one in another. In this area, for example, we find a specific subject such as “Social and Civic values” with evaluation criteria such as “Employ new technologies by developing social and civic values in safe environments”. Thanks to this gateway, we can introduce small door to the vision of computer science, through ethics, which may be transversal with all subjects of the curriculum. The suggestion of the present article is to confront teachers with a vision of technology from an outside perspective, from an ethical prism, once the technology is turned it off and the mobiles or tablets screens are converted into a mere black mirror