Just what is it about BETT?

 

It is that time of year again when a large percentage of the educational ICT community converges on West London for the annual BETT (ed tech trade), show, one of the worlds largest. Last year nearly 29,000 attended the event. In light of the current financial stramash it will be interesting to see how this years figures compare

There have been some subtle changes taking place in recent years with some notable absences amongst the exhibitors. I believe a substantial body of visitors have developed a critical approach to ed-tech, and are less likely to be seduced by the unproven rhetoric of the gizmos and the gadgets. Many, (including myself), will be attending to network, meet up, socialise and have conversations about the application and future of educational technology. It is likely many will attend some of the fringe events including Bettr and Teachmeet, which promises to be one of the biggest yet, as word spreads.

Although Twitter was around last year, I predict it will have a much bigger impact on visitors conversations, and indirectly on the exhibitors, as tweets encourage visitors to visit, avoid or highlight some aspects of the exhibition. I suspect tweeters may well find quite a few extra, (unwanted?) followers from exhibitors who understand the power of Twitter. I logged on at  6.30 am  and BETT tweets were coming in thick and fast. What was most encouraging was the number of overseas visitors tweeting in their own languages. 

Trends? not sure, but I suspect that VLEs, aka Learning Platforms, plus some filtering, blocking and control masquerading as online safety. I may be wrong,! There are, of course, some excellent talks and the Hepple.net stand, (complete with real students), was one of last years highlights. Personally will be taking a very critical look at 'content' whatever that might be.

See you there.

Comments

[Doug Woods]

Theo,
I think you have hit upon 3 important aspects of the BETT show.
1) Visitors are now more critcal of the offerings available and exhibitors know that gizmos are no longer seductive and cheap freebies may no longer be the incentive they once were. This, I feel, demonstrates the increased professionalism and maturity of the Educational ICT market.

2) Many visitors attend for the purpose of networking, attending seminars and discussions about the technology and its uses.

3)The exhibition seems to be attracting more international visitors. Maybe we should change the B in BETT?

As for trends? VLEs were the flavour last year, though I suspect they will still be much in evidence this. I have already noticed a number of applications intended to enable staff to create resources for their VLE.
I suspect Display Technologies, particularly Whiteboards and multitouch surfaces will be in vogue this year. IWB technology hasn't changed much in 10 years; it's about time it moved on.

[Miles Berry]

If you change the B of Bett you won't have so many German speakers tweeting about it early in the morning or late at night ;-)

Bett is great for the networking side of things, certainly within the industry and government/agencies, but increasingly now amongst teachers with teachmeet and bettr.

Interesting, and curiously timely, article about OFSTED's report on VLEs from the BBC yesterday - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7824736.stm :
"inspectors found that the virtual materials available to college students were most likely to have been produced by subject specialist staff, with little from external sources."
Kinda fits in with the teachmeet meme, yes?

[Theok]

Thanks for comments;

Doug I think we agree on most things, certainly lot more 'touch interfaces; though my impression was less interactive whiteboards, probably not a bad thing. Thanks for pointers to VLE content creation.

Miles; touché; my only excuse just got of bed when I took and upload screenshot. Very embarrassing especially as I can speak German. However I did have dinner wth 2 Russian professors last night. Does that redeem me at all?

Indeed an 'interesting' BBC article on VLE's:

"Such virtual learning systems can provide background material, practice tests, course notes and internet links to help pupils at school or for homework or revision."

left me speechless...