every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.”(Nicomachean Ethics, 1094a1-4)Johnson, more of a designer/innovator comes along with a similar set of views, differing in ways, but following a pattern, students demonstrate quality. The goal of Johnson’s user-centered design is to place things in the hands of the end-users, not the creators, or “experts.” Rude’s idea that students are, in a sense molded into something that can produce a higher level of thinking is what Johnson is looking for; his means are different however. A goal of “…joining of productive knowledge and practical knowledge in the Aristotelian sense…” is congruent to Rude’s approach and daunting, as it may seem, is the solution to the paradigm. Coinciding with Rude, Johnson sees this curriculum of technical communications as an opportunity to engage students as well as teach them, so that we are not just learning of our “artifacts or practices,” but creating them and at the same time demonstrating the theorems applicable to them! Use of analogies to draw into the actions of other technical fields, so that we can demonstrate strategies, analysis and evaluation. This method also creates a student that is reflective, one that can complete and comprehend ethical and practical judgments.A response that Johnson might give to Rude would be that this tradition in which they aim to educate students is an approach that almost forms a student into a well-rounded information purveyor and someone that can “…see ethical problems as being more than two-pronged dilemmas that compel an individual to always carry the burden of whistle-blower.” To create a person that offer alternatives to standard dichotomies that are found in our management of power and ethics.Concl...
