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Ciaran Ellis posted a thought-provoking question on LinkedIn recently: Do design decisions involve value judgements?
What do you think? Join the conversation over on LinkedIn and let us know what you think.
If you like the podcast, you can always buy me a coffee to say 'thanks!'
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Alison Hardy:
Hello, listeners, and welcome back to the talking D&T podcast. With me, Dr. Alison Hardy. And for the first time I can say I'm Dr. Alison Hardy, associate professor. So at that point, I want to say thank you very much to people who responded to an episode that I put out last, I think it was November 2022. Asking people, if they'd be willing to write a testimonial support application for Associate Professor, I want to thank you very much for taking the time to do that. For those of you who did, it did mean a lot to me. And it did add a strength in the depth to my application. What does it mean for me becoming associate professor? Well, I'm kind of in the transition phase at the moment, I'm still masters course leader at Nottingham Trent. And that's going to continue in the short term until they appoint somebody else to take over that role. I could continue to do it. But I've decided that after five years of leading the course, it's time for some fresh eyes, some fresh in participants and new ideas on the course, I've really enjoyed and will continue teaching on the Masters doing some supervision work, but it's time for somebody new to do that. And that means that I'll be taking on some different roles at the university, kind of not quite sure what they're going to be I've got some ideas about what I want them to do what I want them to be. So focus very much around my design and technology work. But also some of the other things that I do across the university and sharing some of the work that I've been doing and getting people to think about how they could do things differently in their practice, around education, and around working with their wider communities. And that's what I do in this podcast. And that's why I love doing the podcast, I realised it's been quite a while actually, since I've done one where it's just me talking. So this is kind of quite weird that I'm not interviewing anybody. This week. One of the reasons I've not done that is if you follow me on Instagram, you'll see that we're having some building work done in our house at the moment, we're having a new kitchen, it's still in a state of, well, there's no kitchen, let's put it that way our kitchen is at the back of the garbage. And it's actually better than the old kitchen that we've had taken out. But what that means is that I'm upstairs in a spare bedroom where the sound isn't so good. It's at the front of the house. And we're not on a very busy road. But it's busy enough to pick up background noise. So that's, that's my excuse. But actually, there's also been loads of other things going on, as well as the build work we've had family is here to stay. And things have been happening at work and sort of just making sure that we have some time to switch off and relax as a family as well. At the moment again, if you're a regular listen to the podcast, you might occasionally hear the dog in the background. He's downstairs at the moment where it's a little bit cooler today. But he may well come up and join me depending on how long I talk for. So that's the that's the first thing I want to say is thank you very much for those people who've supported me. And the last year in applying for my Associate Professor, I'll keep you informed about what that might look like, and what changes that might mean. But also, one of the things that I've been doing earlier in the summer is I lead a great event. Sounds like it was great because I led it what I actually mean is it was great with all the people that were there, a group of us from design and technology came together, I'd organise the event I got some funding, where we shared our research and design and technologies, there was a number of design and technology teachers a number of academics and national needs. And I'll put a link in the show notes to a blog post that I wrote for the edge Foundation, who kindly sponsored us, as well as HMV. Some of you might be familiar with their HMV, whose lectures led by the director, Martin Hale, who also sponsored the teachers in getting time out of school to come along. And what we did is we came together, we shared our research, we attended virtually a conference in Canada, the pupils attitude towards technology conference, which was fantastic to hear the research but also to, to share research that's happening in the UK, and not by fancy academics like myself, it's part of our job, but also by D and T teachers who are doing it as part of their jobs amongst the busy things that they're already doing. They're having an impact on their working life and having the research they're doing is having an impact on what they're doing in their classrooms in their departments. What are the outputs or outcomes from that week together? Back in June, as I said was the blog, but also was some podcast episodes on a different podcast of this one, one that's called researching TNT. And I'll put links in the show notes for that. So you can hear some conversations and interviews that Claire Vickery led with different people who were there for the week talking about their research and what they were getting out of the week. But from that week, we've also developed a website that is called researching design and technology. It's gonna be a website for school teachers, and we'll talk more about it in a future podcast because I can go into lots and lots of detail. But again, I'll put a link in the show notes. I can't quite remember whether it's live at the moment or not. We're still working on it. We've got a editorial meeting in a couple of weeks time to start to shape that, but that will be a resource for teachers to find the anti racist out to share how they're using deity research to shape their practice and also to share research that they're doing in their classrooms. So that leads me on to another news item. So I've just mentioned the PAP conference in Canada pupils attitude towards technology. That was Pat 39, I think, and next year Pat 40. If I'm getting my numbers, right, I'm sure Matt McLean, if he's listening will tell me is at Liverpool John Moores University. It's hosted by the poor John Moores. Matt McLean is the chair Sarah Davis, who I work with at Nottingham Trent is the editor in chief for the publication's for the conference papers that are pulled together. And I know a number of other people are involved in that, as well. So Pat 40s, we held in Liverpool, it's a fantastic conference. And we've scheduled it, I think, for October time, I can't quite remember the dates at the moment. Again, I'll do another podcast on this one. But it's one to look out for follow Matt on Twitter, links in the show notes as available, where you can find out about that conference is a great one to attend. But it's an even greater one to share your research and get to meet people from all over the world who have an interest in design and technology education. So look out for that being posted online. But also, as I said, I'll do a podcast that's just about that in the future, probably with Matt and Sarah, as well, because I'll know more about it than I do. So those are some things that I was doing earlier in the summer. And things that are kind of going on the debates in design and technology book is in I've just had the proofs to read this week, to check through to make sure everything's all right, and in the right place for the right times, hopefully, it's going to come out in December, I'm going to be running a book club, so I'm gonna get some proofs of the book early. Hey, go. They can hear that in the background. But there we go, the ice cream fan has just appeared and where what I, but proofs, there we go. So I've got some 10 copies of the book will be coming to me sort of early November, I'm going to put an announcement out in my newsletter in the next couple of weeks as well. Going to have a book club where people can read and talk about it and share ideas before the book comes out. If you want to be part of that, then listen, look out for the newsletter, if you've not signed, it's my newsletter, you can do that on my website. And that's where we're sending out the invitations for people to sign up. If you do sign up and you are involved in you are committing to attend a number of different book club events. And also write reviews and give some feedback on the book to help promote the book as well. So it's a quid pro quo, shall we say, I'm also in the next couple of months starting to write a book proposal for a book that for the first time will be only written by me. So the three books that I've got out of the moment, are all edited collections. So I'm the editor and maybe write one chapter or two chapters in the book. But generally, the whole book is written by other people in design and technology. So I'm stepping out. Now to kind of have a go at writing one that's that's just for me, or just for me, I'm hoping other people will read it as well as myself and my husband and my mom. But it's one that's about my research and about the value of Design and Technology Education. So that proposal will be coming together in the next couple of months, I promised the publishers that I'll have them that by the end of October. So that's an exciting new opportunity that I'm taking kind of putting myself out there to do that. Good. Also make some small tweaks to the podcasts, I'm going to stop adding the episode numbers, that's a big decision I've made at the moment. So the beginning of each recording. That's very simply because actually it helps me just get podcast recorded and uploaded to Buzzsprout. And I don't have to think about the order I can I can just put them up and change the order once they're up there and live or so before they're live. So that's it that's a small thing over you'll still be able to see what number episode is and I will occasionally as I always do boast as I go along about how many episodes I've got out. The next couple of weeks, there's going to be two podcasts released both of our interviews, and both of them I think will be of particular interest to establish design and technology teachers. I kind of do podcast episodes that I think will appeal to different parts of the DNC community, as well as sometimes to the whole community. The first one is with Professor David Spendlove. He's up at the University of Manchester. Some of you may well have been one of his students as you were trained to become a design and technology teacher. And him and I talk about the epi report that the designer Technology Association committed Sound Technology Association. commissioned a while back, you'll have heard me talk about it and a chat that I had with Tony Ryan from the design and technology associate Ah and a while back, but David have some different views. And so we got together earlier in the year and chatted about that. So that will be coming up. And then there's also another one coming up with Drew, Wiccan I've had drew on the podcast before, back in, I think March, maybe Drew had Ofsted in at his school. And so they did a deep dive on design and technology. Andrew comes on and shares what he learned from that what it was like, and we talk about Ofsted deep dives, what they're for, and whether they are the be all and end all there. Sometimes head teachers might refer to them being I know they're a benchmark. I know, there are ways that departments are judged, but they're only one aspect of it. And we kind of explore some of those things around what a deep dive actually means for design and technology. So some of the things that I've got going on. Apologies for the background noise. It's a little bit of a ramble this week. But if you don't sign it, haven't signed up for my newsletter, then do. If you've got any feedback, comments or thoughts about the podcast, then please do leave me a voicemail message on SpeakPipe. I'll leave a link in the show notes. And I might even play your SpeakPipe out in a couple of weeks time if you asked me some questions or you've got some feedback. Alternatively, it'd be really great if you could leave a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcast because that does help other people find it. And again, I'll read those out. I'd like to say The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but it's my podcast and I'll probably just read the good ones out. But you can always find the bad ones if you look for those reviews yourselves. Anyway, thanks again for listening. Hope you've had a good summer if you're in the northern hemisphere. And I hope the year is going well in the southern hemisphere in education. And I'll be back in a few weeks time with a podcast just for me. But in the meantime, look out for the ones from David Spangler Andrew wick and I think you'll enjoy them. And let me know if you've got any topics you'd like me to talk about in the future. You've been listening to the talking DNC podcast with me Alison Hardy. You can connect with me on Twitter. At Hardy underscore Alison. Show Notes and transcripts for each podcast episode can be found on my website. Alison Hardy dot work. Thanks for listening