Tagged: diary

New Post at King’s College London


Following graduation and a spell on the MyUI.eu project with the Human Factors Research Group at the University of Nottingham, I’m delighted to report I have recently accepted a position as post doctoral research associate in Student Experience at the King’s Learning InstituteKing’s College London.  I’ll be taking up the post in December. I’m looking forward to contributing to a cutting-edge programme of research within a distinguished research centre, headed by Prof Paul Blackmore. I’m sure the new role will also inform this blog, as well as providing plenty of opportunities for writing on my new commute.

Via a separate stream of activity, I’ve also confirmed a presentation in the KCL Technology Mediated Learning seminar series on the 8th February in the new year. Title and abstract to be confirmed and signposted on the Diary pages soon, for more formal information about the seminar listings visit the TML pages to be added to the TML mailing lists.

Event: #a11yLND Meetup December 1st 2011


Accessibility London Meetup
Accessibility London Meetup

A quick update for you this morning: firstly, welcome to my new blog – I’ve been migrating 32 Days Remaining to Slewth Press at a new and bespoke URL:  slewth.co.uk. This process will soon have its own dedicated post reflecting on the particular steps and plugins I’ve used  to make the WordPress work for me. In the meantime, any formative feedback is very welcome, so please consider a comment below, tweet or email via the Contact page.

Secondly: I’m delighted to announce that I will be delivering a lightning presentation at the Accessibility London (#a11yLDN) Meetup. I’ll be delivering at 10 minute talk on “Disability Studies and Accessibility: Two Critical Concepts”. During the presentation I’ll introduce Aversive Disablism and Hierarchies of Impairment and the relevance of these concepts for Web Developers.

The event is free and runs from 7pm-9pm on Thursday December 1st at City Univeristy, London. It features a very distinguished group of presenters and looks to be a very interesting and stimulating event. To find out more visit or register visit event bright who will release the final batch of tickets today. In case it’s useful, please note, in addition to the Accessibility London website, there is also a twitter account @a11yLDNMeetUp for live updates and further links. I hope to see you there.

Event: Investigating Socio-Technical Experiences of Disability in Social Media.


On the 8th March 2011 from 4-6pm I will be presenting my doctoral research to researchers and students at Liverpool Hope University’s Centre for Culture and Disability Studies in the Faculty of Education. This guest lecture is offered as part of ‘Introduction to Research Methods: Disability Studies’.  If you would like to attend, please contact the CCDR’s Deputy Director Dr. Ria Cheyne via cheyner@hope.ac.uk.  More details about the location, slides and so forth will be added closer to the day. I hope to see you there!

Title: Disability 2.0: Investigating Socio-Technical Experiences of Disability in Social Media.

Abstract: For many young people, social networks are an essential part of their student experience. My research explores disabled students experiences of disability in social networks to understand how dis/ability difference is ascribed and negotiated within such networks, and the impact it has on student life. This research is firmly located within the social sciences, drawing on the thinking of Foucault to develop understandings of disability and power relations online. However, its research object, the socio-technical mediation of disability, is interdisciplinary; drawing on research territories that are unfamiliar to many disability studies researchers.

 In this talk, I give a backstage look at negotiating a path through interdisciplinary disability studies research, touching on information sciences and human computer interaction, and the particular problems and opportunities that this kind of activity presents. I introduce the notion of ‘bricolage’ as a user-friendly multi-perspective methodology and research approach that has enabled me to develop new, technology-enhanced and accessible research methods, and develop a research lens drawing on complementary methods from Activity Theory, Phenomenography, Discourse Analysis and Case Study.

This will be an interactive session aimed at researchers and students. Prior knowledge of the methods and technologies presented is not necessary. Following on from an orientation in social media research for disability studies, I will also talk about the findings of my research, which consider the ways in which social technologies reposition disabled people within taxonomies of identity, enabling some and dis-abling others.