This is a light-hearted blog about the BETT Show and Twittering teachers meeting each other in the flesh!
On Friday 23rd January 2015, I attended the BETT Show and #TMBett15, which was organised by @DigitalMaverick and @DawnHallybone.
The BETT Show 2015:
“It doesn’t matter what gadget you buy at the BETT show, it’s the quality of the teacher in the classroom that counts …”
Rather than be lured by sales talk, gadgets and freebies, I arrived with the intention of networking with colleagues past, present and future. In this blog, you will see a collection of selfies – much more important – of the people and events I attended during the afternoon and evening.
Firstly, this was the second time I have attended the BETT Show. It is massive! I have mixed feelings about the scale of the event and the nature of the gathering, but attending with the intention of not spending a penny, nor looking for any IT solution for the classroom, it turned out to be a great afternoon to network with colleagues who are all involved in education.
When I first arrived, I was summoned to the Bloomsbury stand to catch up with my editor @HollyBloomsbury. I was asked to strike a pose for my book, 100 Ideas for Secondary Teachers in direct competition with @MrLockyer was has just released his version of 100 Ideas for Primary Teachers.
Soon after, I met @DigitalSisters who are fabulous, as well as passionate about eSafety and campaigning to help improve e-safety standards in schools. You can check out their website Digital Awareness UK for more information about the workshops they offer. They are already signed up to come to my school and also attended TeachMeet London on the 1st April 2015. We speak most of the afternoon talking about students and teachers using social media to their advantage, as well as to their detriment. Over coffee, we grabbed these selfies!
After a walk around the exhibitions, I found myself bumping into my old mates, @Ty_Goddard and @IanFordham, who I last met at EdReform14, a dynamic duo who head up the Education Foundation, one of the UK’s first independent, cross sector, education think tanks. The had set up the #BettFutures zone and coincidentally had asked @DigitalSisters to speak about social media in the classroom. It made total sense to tag alone and miss out on @SirKenRobinson speaking in the main arena.
After a very interesting talk from the panel and audience; and even Ian Fordham pouncing on me to add to the debate, I grabbed a couple of selfies with Director of ICT, consultant and writer for The Guardian, @MattBritland, ICT Teacher and Innovator @Urban_Teacher and @MsClaraGalan (from Silicon Valley) who I recently connected with online. Clara is a marketing manager for an interesting classroom solution, called, @RemindHQ, and former social media employee for @Edutopia. She attended her first UK teachmeet later on in the evening and we spoke about starting up EdCamps here in the UK.
Start-Ups:
In the small BETT Furtures arena, there were several start-ups. @Ty_Goddard took me to three of his favourites. They were:
- Primo – learning technology through tangible play – which looks great(!) for every Design Technology department.
- Massolit – video lectures for A-level students – who claim to super-charge your teaching with video lectures from the best academics in the world.
- AI-Media – a program for teachers and learners enabled by real-time captioning – which looks incredibly exciting!
I managed to secure a free trial on all platforms for my school. I also managed to bump into MINT class; we use this software at my school and it is saving all our teachers time every day, creating seating plans with ease.
Pre TeachMeet:
At 5.30pm, we headed to the main area for the start of TeachMeet BETT. Earlier on in the day, I had stopped off with @DigitalSisters to get our name on the cartoon wall. Here is a shot of before and after, plus a quote from me:
“It doesn’t matter what gadget you buy at the BETT show, it’s the quality of the teacher in the classroom that counts …”
On our walk towards the arena and unbeknownst to me, @SirKenRobinson was still on stage finishing his presentation. In a moment of madness, I said ‘let’s grab a selfie!’ and out came a selfie-stick from the depths of @MrLockyer‘s bag! After just failing to capture a aerial-crowd-selfie, we stood like Justin Bieber fans as Robinson was whisked away into a back room. We waited disapointed. As others dispersed, I stood waiting, and somehow managed to grab his attention through a porthole window. He glanced at my @TeacherToolkit gravatar and nodded. Five minutes later I was in the room having a one-to-one discussion with Ken about creativity, my school, the DfE, @SLTchat and how teachers were now starting to shape and control the educational landscape. He kindly let me take this selfie!
#TMBett15:
The arena was fabulous. Here is a panoramic image which you can click on to make even larger to view.
Organised by @DigitalMaverick for a 3rd year running, @DawnHallybone and @OliverQuinlan were on-hand to assist the smooth running of the CPD session. @GrahamBM was compere and did a fitting job to keep the crowd on their toes. 37 presenters were all in-line to present and there was a great mixture. There was also a fitting tribute to the late @BevEvans22, (SEN Adviser for TES) and a lovely raffle in her memory with donations to cancer charities.
Here are some images from some of the people presenting, plus a few selfies of Twitterati!
Selfies:
Here is my collection of selfie images page; plus the shots I managed to grab during the teachmeet.
The Selfie-Stick!
and one final selfie with @MrLockyer‘s selfie-stick!
@TeacherToolkit with @leah_moo @abbiemann1982 @Miss_J_Hart @mccreaemma @pepsmccrea and (right off image) @ICTEvangelist‘s shoulder at #TMBett15
The highlight of the evening, was @IanAddison using this forum in his presentation, to share how he was using technology in the classroom. He displayed a lovely pregnancy scan to announce to the world that he was to become a father!
Even if I didn’t buy anything at the Bett Show, it’s the quality of the teacher in the classroom that counts!
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