Despite meeting attendees from our stand, we did get to take part in some of the day’s other proceedings. Soon into the morning, Jon Tait (@TeamTait on Twitter) was holding court at the Learn Live: Secondary area. Here, he discussed how different edtech can help to shape the behaviour of students. A good portion of his presentation was concentrated on Class Charts, with Jon illustrating why the resource is so popular with teachers, school leaders and parents (not, it must be said, always beloved by naughty pupils). He also quoted Paul Dix (@PivotalPaul), saying that “The school you want is only 30 seconds away”.
Later in the day, Saku Tuominen and Kate Robinson took to the BETT Arena. Creative director and editor-in-chief respectively, Saku and Kate are two leaders of HundrED (@HundrED_en), an NPO looking to bring global education up-to-speed. Saku opened by bemoaning that education is too often like Las Vegas, in that what happens there stays there. HundrED, with their highly-infectious enthusiasm, aim to unite educators around the world with exciting teaching innovations – a mission not unlike our own. Once Saku had finished sharing the Finish organisation’s structure and activities, Kate took over, introducing 10 new resources from across the world. We highly recommend that you check them out via hundred.org.
While secretary of state for education Justine Greening was unfortunately unable to attend the BETT Show as planned, those in the BETT Futures area got to see Techno Teacher Nicole Ponsford (@NicolePonsford) speak live. Nic was lending her wisdom to a panel discussion discussing great apps for Primary schools, and was joined by Justin Smith of the Educational App Store and a member of the DoodleMaths team. The conversation put real emphasis on taking time to seek out apps created by educators, with Justin conceding that they were yet to find one resource to accompany all subjects.
On top of all this, we spent the day recording short, inspirational videos with BETT attendees. Marking the launch of our new Innovation Bursts series, you can see some of them on our YouTube channel.
So, what were your highlights of Bett day 1? Let us know, and remember to stop by our stand at G80. Bring on day 2!