teaching.mrstacey.org.uk

The Good The best innovations were seemingly from the marketing people, from the company that were giving out free t-shirts (you had to wear them round the stall to be entered into the prize draw) to the BBC branded oranges

The best presentations were from pupils and actual teachers. Credit to Steven Heppell for the Learner Voice area, this should definitely become a regular feature. Great to hear from real teachers and students, showing off what they’re doing in their classrooms (with predominantly free tools!) in the middle of a sea of hard sell. Alex Savage‘s presentation actually stopped me in my tracks. Andrew Field and his pupils did a great presentation on the Adobe stand.

The evening’s Teachmeet was a highlight! Massive thanks should go to Ewan for organising, the sponsors for sponsoring (especially RM for the beer), and for everyone who spoke for speaking. You can see the Flashmeeting recording of the event here (start from 1hour on, I’m on at 2:41:55!)

The Asus. I had a play. There is no doubt that this tool has the real potential to transform classrooms, and really open up possibilities that have previously been shut off due to price restrictions. I’m going to try to come up with a way of getting a couple in school and I’m pretty sure this is something I’m going to be coming back to.

The Bad

The vast majority of the companies there are selling hundreds of variations of the same locked down rubbish. I noticed Ian Usher playing around with the Bob Dylan message site from an internet enabled computer on the adobe stand, and lo and behold it appeared in his presentation later. And he’s got a point, the vast majority of the content would be better if it was released in open formats and teachers could remix it* to suit their purpose. I have serious doubts that many of these companies will be viable once ELCs vanish

The lack of wifi. Until Teachmeet started the only way I could get online was via my phone. This is a bloody technology show. In 2008. Hello??? I know that people want to make money off companies by charging them for internet access to their stands, but really, this is rubbish. And what happened to the originally promoted ‘Becta internet cafe’? No sign of it, and any reference to the fabled stand had been removed from the signs in the venue itself

The food. Rubbish choice of food I thought. When we were in Earls Court last October I was really impressed with the selection. I would have hated to have been someone stuck there for four days, I think I would have sent for take away

The weird

On the way in to London I flicked through the booklet I’d been sent at the list of exhibitors. ‘MyMemory.com’ caught my eye, and I started to ponder what it could be. Some kind of family history site, or a place to share recorded memories from previous generations. Nope. It was a large vending machine selling a selection of memory products, from USB pens to SD cards for your camera. Payment was by built in chip and pin. I suspect this may have become the most photographed thing of the show

I met up with Doug and we went off to see the FutureLabs stand where he was presenting today. In the back, we found a couple of researchers showing off their new toy which allows to create a range of beats and notes using blocks which you then move around or away from each other. The interaction generates the music. It really was amazing to play with. According to Futurelab’s website it’s called the ReacTable, and apparently Bjork has already used it in concert. Check out a video of it in action!

Overall

Worth the trip for the teachmeet and for picking up a few ideas, but the quality of many of the products on offer was pretty disappointing. I thing that was really missing through the majority of the hall was real teachers showing off what they were doing, primarily because what they’re doing is using freely available tools and so there’s no one is going to pay money to an event organiser. In the Teachmeet the question was asked ‘What will Teachmeet 2038 look like?’ Whatever it ends up like, I suspect it, rather than the BETT show itself will be the future for showing off technology in schools.
* Remixing – My suggestion for next years buzzword!