This paper presents an introductory college course on digital technologies, offered to students at the school of law at the university of Padova, specifically those enrolled in a bachelor ’s degree program named “law and technology”. The overall learning objectives of the whole degree program include securing the students' literacy in technology, strengthening their technical skills in the fields of digitization, and enabling them to evaluate the digital impact from multiple perspectives. Therefore, the specific teaching unit described in this paper aims to make students develop a general knowledge of the key digital technologies, making them able to assess and estimate various figures of merit and impacts of modern digital devices. More importantly, the way future professionals engage with technology will be crucial in order to make a sustainable development possible and to make new technologies a real mean of well-being, rather than a possible threat to the planet resources.

However, students need to be educated and stimulated to develop a real sustainability mindset. To support this goal, a significant part of the lectures (i.e. 24 out of 72 total hours) has been dedicated to introduce students to the main concepts of systems thinking, developing familiarity with core habits of systems thinkers and becoming able to apply specific tools (such as causal links, feedback loops, and stock-and-flow models) to analyze the technological phenomenon from a broader and more inclusive perspective. These tools will help students to develop the ability to critically evaluate digital technologies, being aware both of potential advantages and possible threats. The systems thinking approach will make them able to recognize the complexity of digital technologies, and to integrate in their personal evaluation of any technology application both strictly technical aspect and economic, social, and environmental dimensions.

The lectures have been characterized by an extensive use of active learning methodologies, stimulating students to discuss in groups, to orally present their outcomes to the whole class, and to exchange feedback among peers. At the end of the course, each student proposed a case study, putting into practice the synergy between the knowledge of technical issues and the systemic mindset, demonstrating his or her ability to autonomously analyze in more depth examples of digital technologies, highlighting potentials and limits from a wide perspective.

The course has been offered for the first time in the 2024/25 academic year to third-year students in the Law and Technology program and was regularly attended by eight students. Although this number is relatively small, it is consistent with the elective nature of the course and in fact it takes a two to three-year lag before newly offered courses gain broader student interest. Nevertheless, this first experiment gave good and encouraging results, as assessed by a final survey, taken by seven of the eight students completing the course and the final exam. Six of these students, in general rate the course “good” or “very good” and the total of the responding students would suggest other students to take the course. More importantly, all the students at the end of the course declare to be quite sensitive to sustainability issues related to the technologies and three of them say that the course contributed to develop such a mindset.

Keywords: Systems thinking, sustainability, digital skills.