Image - Mr Ush on Flickr

I’m not going to BETT this year. My work is already funding my MSc so a I don’t feel I can ask Keith to fund a trip to Olympia, especialy given I have no pressing need to go.

I’m a little sorry as it’s only in the last year that I’ve started to follow the ed-tech community through Twitter and there seems to be a lot more interesting stuff round the fringes. Follow the #BETT2010 tag to explore some more.

I’ve rashly suggested that people could play a Twitter version of Tag while they are at Olympia but didn’t think what the rules could be.

Here’s my suggestion…

• It’s Tag in reverse. The idea is that players actively try to get caught as an excuse to meet other Twitter users in the education technology network.
• I’ve suggested that @dughall is it but as BETT happens over a number of days the first person that day to get to stand D10 (next to the Grand Entrance)and announces it on Twitter using the #tagbett hashtag. People who are “IT” have to tweet where they are every time they change location (stand, seminar, event, cafe etc) or every 10 mins or so until “found”.
• People following #tagbett then have to get to get to the location and find “IT”. When “IT” changes person both people have to confirm that they are now (or are no longer) IT.

Is that too massively complicated? Please comment and I’ll refine the rules…

I’m in danger of turning into a Film Education/CP3 fanboy but I do quite like the look of this…

At BETT Film Education relaunched their website, redesigned to make it more accessible and more flexible. It has loads of great resources online for analysing films using clips and other multimedia. Thanks to their strong links to the film industry the films they examine are right up to the minute. Slumdog Millionaire is the latest.

The resources are suitable for levels from KS2-A level and are well worth a look.

The website is delivered in partnership with the South East Grid for Learning.

Image credit - John Connell on Flickr

I had these brilliant plans to do lots of live blogging/twittering/vodcasting from BETT this year but I couldn’t be arsed. Bad blogger. Sorry. It was just so hectic and noisy, plus the Premiere Inn charge £9 for 24 hours on their cloud! 

So, what did we learn? I’ll do some specific stuff about some of these points later so here’s a summary

1. There seemed to be more stuff about assessment, monitoring and systems this year and less interesting stuff about teaching and learning. My boss, who specialises in e-safety, thought it said a lot that the CEOP stand was a tiny, wee booth but organisations like Sentinel had huge stands – is this fueling the idea that e-safety is about buying a better monitoring system?

2. Interesting-looking things we saw on demo – True Tube (social issues documentary sharing service), Podium2 (easy-to-use podcasting software), 2 Do-it-yourself (game making software aimed at KS1-2 from 2Simple). More on these soon…

3. ICT CPD – sending people on loads of courses isn’t truly effective. It should be more about building collaborative networks. I need to process this one a bit more but had some interesting thoughts about how to model CPD along the lines of “Enquiring Minds“. Need a whole post to talk about that one…

4. There is no magic mobile device. There was stuff for running on mobile platforms but nobody was jumping up, saying “this is the machine to do it on!” I thought there would be more about the iPhone but Apple weren’t exhibiting and I coudn’t find much on the apps side. Is it just me or has the heat  gone out of mobile learning compared to 2 years ago? More convinced now that mobile learning will have to be designed to work on students’ devices, whatever that might be.

5. 3d screens are still at the interesting gimmick stage. It’s the first time I’ve seen one of these in operation but all they had to demonstrate was things like looking at the workings of the inner ear and a tudor street scene. Another CLC in our region is really pushing these which puzzled me slightly – once you get pack the “ooh” factor can it really sustain interest. Once you introduce more interactivity into it (maybe with motion sensors or similar) then it’ll be worth more of a look.

6.Why is ICT still dominated by interactive whiteboards? Not saying they’re not a useful tool but everywhere you look it’s Promethean this and Smart that?

On a minor note, I was surprised by the reaction of a managed service provider I spoke to involved in a LEA future schools scheme. I was asking about how a managed service would actually operate from a day to day perspective and he seemed extremely reluctant to talk about it. I was genuinely trying to broaden my knowledge and not get into a fight but he actually said that he didn’t want to discuss managed service and why weren’t people asking about all the great equipment they were putting into the new schools in their contract. A bit disappointing.

In summary, I didn’t come back feeling particularly fired up about ICT developments but the changes afoot concerning Building Schools for the Future and the shape of the curriculum made me quite optimistic about what’s round the corner. As someone wisely pointed out, it’s a trade show so if you want big ideas and inspiration then conferences are a better place to look.

Just thought I’d mention that Chris – the main blogger on ElectricChalk will be at Bett from today, so there won’t be any posts until Monday.

Expect some new news or ideas from him when he gets back. (Also, maybe, keep an eye on our twitter bar on the right in case he leaves some messages)

So, are any of you going to/have been to Bett this year?

I’d like to hear your thoughts on the world’s largest educational technology event…Cheers.

The boss has sort of given the nod to me and my line manager going to BETT this year.

If you are involved in ICT in education in any sort of planning or strategic sense in the UK then BETT is a worthwhile trip. Just make sure you have a game plan before you turn up. Don’t expect to wander round and discover stuff although some explore time is recommended. Pick exhibitors that have something to do with your plan for the year and build a route map round them.

Also, pick some decent seminars.

I didn’t go last year as I failed to do the above in 2007 and came away demoralised and exhausted.

I’m going to try and blog/vlog/twitter my experiences this year partly to share the chalk-love but also ‘cos I’ve never tried blogging from the field and that’s quite a useful educational tool.