If you like the podcast, you can always buy me a coffee to say 'thanks!'
Please offer your feedback about the show or ideas for future episodes and topics by connecting with me on Twitter @hardy_alison or by emailing me.
If you listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, please take a moment to rate and/or review the show.
This podcast is funded by consultancy work I do outside my full time job at Nottingham Trent University and my beloved Patrons. Patrons receive exclusive content and various rewards, depending on their level of support, such as access to my special private Patreon-only posts and signed copies of my books. Patrons can also suggest topics for my podcast. If you want to support me by becoming a Patron click here. Whilst ongoing support would be fantastic you can make a one-time donation instead, through PayPal (contact me to for details), if that works better for you. If you are not able to support me financially, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!
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!'
Please offer your feedback about the show or ideas for future episodes and topics by connecting with me on Threads @hardy_alison or by emailing me.
If you listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, please take a moment to rate and/or review the show.
If you want to support me by becoming a Patron click here.
If you are not able to support me financially, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!
Alison Hardy:
Well, this is the 100th episode of talking D&T. I've been doing this since April 2019. So just over three years, and it's been fantastic. I mean, it's the hard work, I'm not gonna make any bones about that. I do the setting up the recording the editing the publishing myself, but I've learned so much in doing the process, not just of the technical side, which, which I've enjoyed, I think I've got better at but also the things that I've learned along the way talking with people. So in this episode, I just wanted to take stock and do a little bit of what I talked about in episode 99. Reflect and celebrate. So really, this episode is all about me, and what I've done since I started the podcast, but I did a quick tally before starting to record of all the episodes that I've done. So as I said, this is the 100th episode, I wanted to be strictly true, there were a few that I did early on for the learning to teach book, which I'm not including in in this 100 but 100 episodes, and of those 27 have been interviews. 37 I've talked about research. 14 I've talked about knowledge. 21 I've talked about values. 20 have been focused on teaching 31 on curriculum 12 have involved international colleagues being interviewed, unsurprisingly, 15 have been about the books that I've been working on. Eight have been on design and only one on technology. Now I when I kind of looked at that those figures that really gave me a bit of a that's interesting, only eight on design. But then actually when it came out only one on technology as an aspect of design and technology. Because it all looks interesting that does that maybe show my preference. Being a researcher, I kind of can't stop analysing different data and thinking about what it might mean. But 37 talking about research, I think for me that really reveals that that's something that's, that's important to me. And 27 interviews also shows to me how I've enjoyed having conversations and talking with people. So I hope that's these 100 episodes have been useful, interesting, insightful, challenging, sometimes controversial for you. That's what this has been about. It's not just been about me talking you take away the word just it's not about me and what I think, yeah, I've been sharing what I think but actually, it's been about the conversations that have arisen during the recordings, and afterwards. And that's what's been so fantastic, is that it has given me space to talk to people people have come on the podcast that I've talked to outside some really good friends of mine have been on the show, Sarah Davis, Matt McLean, Edie Norman, in a really people that are really important to me, beyond my design and technology life have been on the podcast, but also people that I've sort of come across on social media like Derrick Jones, who's coming up in a couple of weeks. Paul Carney was on early on when I reviewed his book, you know, so also the people that I would not have known or had reason to have conversations with, but the podcast is, is given me that opportunity, and that that's been a real privilege. And so I want to thank all those people who have been on and given me their time and their space, and also the people that have given me feedback and comments, and new relationships. For me, professional relationships have come out from the podcast. Somebody I'd like to mention is Claire Vickery, who is now one of my doctoral students doing some work around design and technology on her professional doctorate with me at Nottingham Trent. I don't think I'd have really got to know Claire, if it hadn't been for the podcast, Claire, drop me an email a long time ago. And we've had several conversations since and Claire's about to get involved in another project that I'm running at the moment as well as my own research project that she's been involved in. So that's been really exciting to get to know people like Claire and other teachers that I've met and discussed design and technology with on the podcast who've said all but I haven't got anything to talk about. But actually people have had loads of things to talk about and share in a Liam Anderson's been on twice. Liz Alton came on and talked about the really fantastic work that she was doing in her school with the stem centre as well. Daniela Schillaci Rowland came on and talked about ethics about ethical research. And I know since then, has been doing some work with Matt McLean in case stables and is presenting at the PAP 39 conference, and later on in June so enough people it's been really great to be involved in people's sort of starting off with a small conversation but helping them and encourage them in facilitating conversations where they've moved on to other things. And that's been really exciting. I've got some future plans coming up about the podcast as well. I've got a couple coming up recently, in the next few weeks that I've got published, not recorded, not published. So I've got Tony Ryan, from the Design and Technology Association is going to be talking about the epi reports, David Spendlove, is back giving some of his thoughts about the epi report. And what's next, and I'm going to do a podcast, with some more thoughts about that Derrick Jones from Open University, I've never had a conversation with Derrick Jones if it wasn't for the podcast. So that's, that's what's coming up. I'm gonna play around with the style, I might take the music, I might leave the music, I don't know, just yet. But I also want to say thank you very much to people who have given me support as I've been doing this, given me feedback, reached out sent me emails, a while back, I did a very personal email, personal podcast, and then put it in my newsletter as well, that I was applying for Associate Professor at Nottingham Trent. Well, I can give an update on that. Don't get too excited. I haven't got it just yet. But it is going through a process my application was submitted early in February. And universities have many layers where these things have to go through and, and be reviewed and approved onto the next level. It's a rigorous process. And I had an email last week to say that mine was had been supported at school level. And had gone to the university panel, and had also gone out for external assessments so that other people in my field, are now looking at my associate prof application, and writing an assessment about whether they think that I am already at Associate Professor level. So that's really exciting for me, but also just to say thank you very much to so many people who responded to my call for testimonials. Your testimonials went into my application, which ended up being about 50 pages long. And and that was they were really powerful. But not just powerful for the associate prof application, but also for me to reflect on and celebrate and, and see the project process that I had gone through and and the way that my work was beginning to influence and kind of get people to think about what they were doing. And to celebrate what they were doing. I've got a few people as well who financially support the podcast, at the moment the podcast is supported by them. And also by myself out of any external work that I do. It's not quite running at a not for loss. So if you do feel like you're in a position to either put one off support, you can buy me a coffee. And there's a link in the show notes. Or if you want to become a patron and be more involved in the podcast, then I'll also put a link in the show notes. And you can sign up and support me from as little as a as a pound a month. And that would really help with going to alleviate some of the costs. So what's next? Well, I've also been taking some time to think about the multiple projects I have in design and technology going on. I've just completed the debates in design and technology book. And thank you very much to all the contributors for taking part in that book, I'll do a podcast about the book coming out and how it's gonna be structured and how you can get involved in book groups and discussion groups around each of the chapters. But that was a big undertaking. And doing a book is a big undertaking. I'm about to start writing a proposal for a book that's just sold, authored by me around my work in values of design and technology. So that's one of the things that I'm going to be focusing on in the next year or so is my work around what is the value of Design and Technology Education. I've done some major data collection a couple of years ago, I had planned to do some workshops, but due to my own ill health had had to postpone those. And I'm hoping in the next 12 months that those will be back on the agenda and will be happening again. So that's the first big project I've got going on. And then the next project I've got going on is something that we've called the brace project, which is building research, engagement and capacity in design and technology education. If I've had 37 episodes where I've talked about research that gives an indication to me about how important building that research community and design and technology is. So what I've got happening there is I'm bringing teachers, academics and some national subject leads in design and technology and curriculum together in June and we're going to start planning well what research do we need in design and technology? And I'll be talking about that on the podcast as we go along. And we will be producing some special edition episodes that go along with that project. Because I really do believe that this is not about me, or people like Matt or Sarah Davis, David Morrison love and so on. us doing the research So this is about research practitioners or practitioner researchers, whichever way you want to talk about it. People in the classroom doing research on their practice in design and technology. People like Joe Chigi are, are really great examples. And Daniela Schillaci. Roland are really great examples of people who do research about design and technology and in their practice. So I'm looking to build that community and build that support. People like Claire Vickery are involved in that. So teacher practitioners, so if you're doing research, and you want to know how to get involved, maybe we can find your mentor thinking about how you can publish and share your work, then please do get in touch. I've got a number of different spaces where people can publish and share their research. We do stuff on the designer, technology teacher education blog, it's going a little bit quiet at the moment. And I've got a couple of blog posts in my inbox to go through and edit to put on there, but I do that with Matt McLean. But there are spaces that we're creating, where we can share the research that we're doing. So that leads me on to my third and final project that I'm focusing on, which is one that I'm doing with Eddie Norman and David spendless pod Podcast coming up in a couple of weeks, also relates to this. It's about redesigning, design and technology. The AAPI report that came out recently, you know, really gave us a benchmark about where we were in Designer technology and pupil numbers, teaching numbers, how things had changed, and where we were at. And people keep talking about things needing to change. But what we're trying to do in this project is actually let's design the next version, let's get our design thinking. Let's take a design Lee approach. And so we've got one book out so far with some preliminary research. I see people doing stuff on social media all the time talking about what they're thinking and what they're doing. But I think we now need to pull together a design specification. And so that's the next part of that project. And so my work there is about leading on and working with people to redesign design and or technology 2.0 to use David's language. So those are my three projects that I'll be talking about in future episodes, and will be sustaining me I'd imagine for the next 12 to 18 months, at least, I'm going to have to start saying no to things. I'm still picking up bits of consultancy, and working with different schools to analyse their curriculum. And as I'm saying that I've just remembered a rather large project I'm just about to start, which is looking at research that's out there, around what makes good design and technology. So actually, I've got four things. So I'll be talking more about those. And if you want to get involved, then please do reach out to me, drop me an email. Share me your thoughts. I'm always open to people's views, news, ideas and opinions, as I'm always giving them here on the podcast. So that is episode 100. And I'm going to do a little run around the garden in the moment sharing and celebrating to say well done to myself, and thank you very much to everybody support, feedback and encouragement. As I've been doing these