Another great event from Hey!

This edition was an education special, sponsored by Work in Web and instead of the interview-style format, this event was held as two lectures with Q&As, from two leading educators from MMU and the University of Ulster (Please note that as these events are a relaxed after work affair (with bar), there may be some swearing in the videos).

How do you teach something that people can’t even agree what it’s called?
By Richard Eskins

Links to video & slides here
Twitter handle: @eskins

Is it to be pixels, ems, or rems?
Is it to be CSS flex–box, columns, tables or grids?
Should we use Bootstrap or Foundation?

The difference for Richard, a web design lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, is that there is a whole class expecting him to have the definitive answer. They expect the ‘right’ answer. Richard discussed these issues and attempted to deliver some answers as well as an insight on how best to manage this issue going forward within education.

This talk really drove it home to me that web development is an ever-changing beast and I, as part of the client services team, hadn’t fully appreciated that web development teams have to be constantly on the ball of these changes.

One aspect I liked about this talk was Richard’s anecdote about where Web Development was taught now in terms of departments – from art and graphic departments to maths and humanities; this really highlighted the way that universities are teaching web related subjects is still new and needs better organising to better facilitate students with the most up to date information.

Anti-Glacial Learning
by Christopher Murphy

Links to video & slides here

Twitter handle: @fehler

This talk was on the importance of agile approaches towards education. Christopher Murphy, a writer, designer and educator based in Belfast, explored the role educators can play in signposting students towards timely and relevant information, and the value of developing ‘a latticework of mental models’.

Murphy defined the importance of educators delivering up-to-date, non-glacial content (a term he’s created himself).

I found this talk really relevant – although not directly an employer or a mentor, but as part of the client services team I am responsible for educating my clients and sharing my knowledge with the rest of my team to allow us to be proactive and give the best advice. I particularly enjoyed his section on how to become a “T Shaped Person” i.e a person who is good at one skill (the vertical line in a T), but uses a broad range of experience and interests to help improve at that specific skill.

There was also some great book recommendations in his slides so please do check those out!

Both talks really inspired me and made me evaluate how I manage and motivate myself to keep learning about the web industry, and what I can do to pass this motivation on to others on my team and to my clients.

The next Hey! talk is due in March, you can view more here:

Read our review of previous Hey! Events here