Yesterday was opening day and, for me the first time that I had a full day to just attend seminars and soak up the BETT experience. Whilst I liked a lot of what I saw, I must admit to being a little disappointed in the sameness over the last few years. I know that some of the blogs I read really talk up the happenings at BETT but a lot of the writers are ICT specialist teachers at schools and are not as concerned about systemic change in the use of ICT for learning as I am. Like the fantastic HSBC ads that came out a year ago, it depends on your point of view.

I attended quite a few seminars from BECTA and from UK teachers and Head Teachers and they are still facing the same challenge of “how to shift the good practice from being what goes on in one or two rooms to something that happens across the school. It appears that the new Next Gen Learning programme is going to go some way to helping this. I am looking forward to learning more about initiatives in schools over the next few days.

As for the products, it seems that everything I have come across so far is a refinement on something rather than a new initiative. The mini notebooks that were a real buzz last year are still everywhere but they are just one of the mix which includes electronic whiteboards of all types all of which are, of course, “much better now” because of the must have features of short throw projecting, rear projection, multitouch or some other “essential” feature, mobile technology and a learning platform.

Every single supplier is passionate that they have developed the feature that your school needs and they are very happy to bend your ear and explain why this is so.

Whoops! Must run. More soon.

Paul

I felt very honoured to be able to play around with this nice piece of pre-release technology which is due for release in December and will be priced around the HK$3000 mark. I took a few photos of it in the office so that you might get some idea of how big an image it might cast. I have shared these as a Picasa Web Album.

The guys wanted my thoughts on educational applications of these. I had to tell them that after my lack of success in trying to promote the Creative Vado Hand-Held Video Camera beyond the creative educators in Hong Kong schools like Clive Dawes of Kellett School and Dan Everest of Yew Chung Primary, I think that I am not going to get much response in fairly traditional old Hong Kong to how schools might use these to improve student outcomes.

Am I being too negative?

Go on! Prove me wrong.