Image of BETT by Danny Nicholson - Flickr - CC - GA stand was top right, behind the Weather Store standI spent Friday and part of Saturday of this week at Kensington Olympia for the annual BETT show.
I have attended the show for most of the last 9 years, usually in the pay of somebody. This time, of course, it was to represent the Geographical Association, who had a small but perfectly formed stand at Q42-2 in the Subject Association area, which was in a better position this year – still on the gallery but at least with a view of the flickering flame of the Promethean stand if you really crouched down and squinted through the other stands in between.
If you came up and spoke to us – many thanks – if you want further information on anything that you saw, please get in touch.
Thanks to David Rayner and Tessa Willy for their company on the Saturday, and to Paula and Tony Richardson and Sophie MacDowall on the Saturday.
The journey to London was a little disrupted both ways due to engineering works, general rush-hour congestion, pouring rain and King’s Cross underground being partially closed, but apart from that it was fine.
It was good to see a lot of teachers on the Friday particularly. Apologies to those who I didn’t catch up with, or to those I just missed as our paths failed to cross. I had been following events at the show from afar using my Twitter network for the previous 2 days.
One of the additional reasons for attending BETT on the Friday is the option to attend the Teachmeet on the Friday, which was fronted this time round by Tom Barrett and Stuart Ridout. There were familiar faces organising the video streaming, and other aspects of the evening, and thanks to all those who sponsors who paid for the cold lager that I drank all night, and the nibbles.
One of the speakers asked the full time practising teachers among the 250 ish crowed in attendance to put their hand up, and it seemed that only around a third of the people who attended were teachers. This didn’t matter to me necessarily as long as the majority of people who spoke were teachers. I spoke at my first Teachmeet: at the Scottish Learning Festival with Ewan McIntosh in the chair, but I was teaching at the time.
The strict time limit did mean that some people were cut off who just needed a few more seconds to provide a rounded conclusion to what they were saying. I would have liked, for example, to have have heard more from David Noble, who was talking about podcasting using Gabcast and iPadio to allow students at the place where he works to articulate what they were feeling, and also facilitate “just in time” learning...
Importantly, though I think everyone went away having heard of something new...
A few new things that I went away with were:
1. LINKBUNCH
http://linkbun.ch – shortens links, but shortens multiple links and opens them in tabs on a browser – useful for collating a range of tools and websites for research into one link that could then be added to a VLE or similar location. Works in Firefox web browser.
2. I also really enjoyed Miles Berry’s recreation of the fish tank in Finding Nemo in just 7 minutes using SCRATCH: an animation product that is a free download. It allows for the creation of animations using simple programming steps and drawing tools.
One of the advantages of the location of BETT was that I finally got to meet up with the folks at Healthy Planet, and discuss some potential links with the GA.
This is an initiative to connect schools with fund raising and some sort of practical action by funding projects which involve supporting natural resources.
The latest addition to the site is the new £29 + 0 = £29 initiative
It’s fund raising with a purpose, and Healthy Planet will probably be working more closely with the GA during 2010 – keep an eye out for further updates.
ESRI were present at the show, although I never got the chance to head into the area where they were located. I did get the chance to speak to George from ESRI though, and show him some good iPhone apps.
Quick trivia question: what does ESRI stand for ?
Something to remember is that Richard Waite from ESRI will be delivering the public lecture on the 8th of April at the GA Confernece at the University of Derby.
Thanks also to Eylan at Brainpop for being so positive about some of the projects that I showed him. Met Moby too...
AEGIS also had copies of their new SUCCESS guides, written by Helen Young of Geography Geek fame, and there was a lot of interest in the booklets that Diana Freeman left with us at the GA which showed the latest Advisory Unit products.
Thanks also to the Ordnance Survey folks for their kind prize of a compass, even though I got their map question hopelessly wrong. The OS stand had a wonderful floor which was made up of the 1:25 000 map of the area around Keswick, which had apparently attracted a lot of interest from some of the visitors, some of whom event went as far as crawling around on it trying to find their house. I am sure that geography departments would love to have the flooring in their corridors etc., or as a focus for the entry to the department. Would look good on the stairs at Solly Street too...
Margaret from SatMap came over to show us her rugged hand-held GPS device, which is used extensively in outdoor pursuits, but would also find a use in many classrooms.
Also met with Philippe from Navidis: a company based in Issy les Moulineaux, which had some great mapping products based in urban locations. They have developed a product which allows an exploration of a range of cities: currently a range of cities in France, plus Barcelona. The interface is nice and fluid, and doesn’t really look like other products I’ve seen. There is a range of statistical data presented by region, and mapping of different types including relief data which is nicely rendered. Check the website for a taster of what they do.
The product is set to have a new iteration in September of this year, which will allow easier addition of user generated content. This will significantly increase the potential value of the web based product within classrooms.
Check out INTERACTIVE EARTH, or Terres Interactives for more...
The availability of Google Street View and 3D buildings is an issue in terms of take-up, but this product is of a very high quality, and could find a use in schools if appropriate supporting curriculum material was produced.
The product is competitively priced at around 50 euros for a subscription by an individual, and slightly more for an institution subscription.
One issue is to decide which cities to make available ? It was noticeable for example, although I only reflected on this at the time, that Paris is not included. This could be due to its scale: for example, London could well be too large and too complicated to track down the relevant people for all of the boroughs to be able to create an appropriate city image.
If you were to make use of the imagery, mapping and statisitical information on a city in the UK, which city would you like to have available ?
Also caught the start of Jamie Buchanan Dunlop and Ed Parsons’ Google Earth presentation on the Playful Thinking stand, which was closely followed by a demonstration by 2Simple software, which made the important statement that pupils are producers rather than consumers.
Also had a chat to Stephen Heppell about a few things, and we compared iPhone apps. He showed me Voice Band, which is a superb creative product to allows a multi-track composition to be created by singing into the phone e.g. lay down a bass line then add drums etc....
Thanks also Richard Needham from Association for Science Education for the quick chat about projects.
Also met up with Charles Worth again from ULearn. They are beginning to work on a problem which prevents a lot of teachers from using the free mapping data that is available from their local authority. Very often it is not obvious which person to contact at County Hall, and the data may be in different formats from the ones required by the software that is being used in the school.
A number of local authorities have already added their data to the site, and more are following.
They will also offer Free map printing, and also include aerial photography and historical imagery where it is available.
So all in all, lots to follow up...
Will no doubt be back at BETT next year, when I may even make it into both halls.
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