I’ve just joined the other place (@annafbd)… can’t quite bring myself to close this account completely, but won’t be posting or logging in here anymore.

(I still intend to dress like a toddler).

Very excited to share that from 1st Feb (yes, Saturday) I will be the Head of Creative Technologies in School of Arts & Creative Technologies at University of York. Not quite what I had planned for 2025 a fortnight ago, but very much looking forward to it all the same 🎉.

(I’m still not really on this app anymore… but will prob want to use this space for participant recruitment).

Beyond thrilled that my project to develop an Anti-Ableist Research Methods Toolkit has been funded. We will be running surveys, interviews and co-creation workshops with disabled people and researchers. Next semester has gone from very busy to ridiculously busy, but I’m excited!.

RT @ConnorScottG: We wonder why the employment rate for blind people is so low, and then I read tweets about Chris on strictly saying he's….

It’s Halloween so by law I have to share the spookiest, creepiest twins.

Waiting in the queue to see Rocky Horror Picture Show… I drove into the city so am not drinking, I fear this may have been an error of judgement.

Because I went for option b, and evidently this was WRONG.

Right… if someone emails you and explicitly says “please let me know if this will cause a problem”, and it does not cause a problem, do you . a) email them to say “this does not cause a problem” or . b) not email, because they said “email if it causes a problem” and it does not.

I have just pressed “submit” on my first big grant application as Project Lead! . I will celebrate by doing all the work that I haven’t been doing because I’ve been writing the grant. And this afternoon by attending a 3 hour meeting that definitely could have been an email.

Front loading the teaching on my module has meant for a very hectic start of semester. But, somehow I’m 2/3rds of the way through my teaching already. Grant deadline next week and then I can breathe 🤪.

Oh, I really need these for my office.

are not fit for purpose from an academic teaching perspective. I want to provide an accessible, inclusive teaching environment, but as it stands that is very hard for me to actually practically deliver because of how the information is given to us.

I sent an email to someone yday saying that as a disabled staff member, I could do with a staff support plan to help me manage the student support plans because they are so badly designed for use as an academic. I was being somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but the processes.

2) the workload associated with making individual accommodations is a problem, but it’s NOT because of the number of students who need them or what they need, it’s because of the processes we have to follow to access those accommodations and apply them.

1) If standard practice was to teach in an accessible and inclusive way from the outset, fewer students would need us to make specific, individual accommodations. Eg. No student should have to request lecture recordings or to have access to materials in advance of teaching.

No one asked for it, but here is my hot take on the accessibility accommodations discussion because I have thoughts…. A short 🧵.

Back in May I was awarded promotion, but it doesn’t actually apply til the 1st October. So, I’m looking forward to respawning as a Senior Lecturer tomorrow (yes, I’ve been using the title since week 0, because it’s silly that it doesn’t apply at the start of the academic year).

I would very much like this to happen to me please and thank you.