I always feel a bit daunted an overwhelmed by an event the size of BETT. I guess it reflects a bit on my lack of a systematic approach to the event. I wear a lot of hats in the role that I currently occupy. On the one hand, I was attending BETT to hear about trends and developments in the use of Educational Technology worldwide to see if the field might still have some potential to grow in importance in textbook and examination focused International Schools in my region.

On another hand, I look to see some good examples of classroom use of ICT that I can pass on to the schools who are prepared to pay for my services in the Asian region and I also want to see the latest software and hardware and get a feel for the directions that developments are moving in. I was also on the lookout for some good presenters who might have a message that we would find compelling at the 21st Century Learning @ HK conference in October. Finally, given that a lot of International Schools, especially in Hong Kong, are looking to implement Learning Platforms, upgrade School Information Management Systems and put more technology for access in the hands of students and staff, I was on the lookout for quality providers who might be focused on meeting the challenging needs of international schools in Hong Kong and the region.

Given this, it is probably no wonder that I spend a lot of my time unproductively chatting to the wrong people or attending seminars that are far to UK centric to be of use to me. I did, however, manage to catch a few folk that were worth listening and speaking to including the Studywiz people who seem to be very keen to have a strong presence in the Asian region. I have met with them at conferences including the Shanghai Learning 2 conference and have been in communication with them when doing some consulting work with Nanjing International School who use the system. Very interesting to see that the 2 big School Management Information System providers, SERCO and SIMS are very keen to look to developing more of a presence in the Asia Pacific region as are RM who are promoting the MAZE system in use at the English Schools Foundation. Great to see the vendor interest in the conference and it looks like we might be able to get some good vendor support for the conference in October.
Speaker wise, I was privileged to be able to hear, among others, the thoughts of John Davitt. John is a UK based consultant who has spoken at various big events including Alan November’s Building Learning Community Conference in the US. This alone is a great achievement. John is unique as a very hands-on presenter who creates many of the tools that he promotes. I think that he would be an excellent keynote speaker and/or workshop presenter for the conference. I tried to capture some of John’s presentation on my Vado. As always, comments about whether you think you could use John at your school before or after the conference would be greatly appreciated.

Photo: BETT09 by cloudberrynine