A Week in London #bettuk2026 #bett26 Part Three BETT

 #Bettuk2026 Wed -Friday 21st-23rd January 2026

Here is my usual summary and observations

2nd year at BETT when there were no feet on the ground from Education Scotland.  A travel ban apparently. Shame when the biggest educational technology event in the UK is on and senior folks from all major IT companies are in London and not least the UK and international educational community. 

It is a bit of a scandal really. Scotland should be on the map at this event. I spotted Wales and Northern Ireland on the UK stands. Great to see EdTech's from schools, colleges, universities and local authorities found the ways and means to get down from Scotland. Education Scotland's sponsoring department please note.

Queen Elizabeth line to Excel continues to be a revelation for travelling to and from venue and opens up possibility of accommodation across London. I stayed initially with my daughter in her student flat over in Deptford and then moved for two nights to an amazing hotel hostel in Rotherhithe. Really brilliant value and proof that you can do BETT on a budget. Made for an interesting free short ferry commute in morning. 

It was very much AI every where - some pretty random and some very focused on the challenges discussed over the previous two days. AI can write your essay and mark it. Message really is that assessment has to change and that centres really need to learn about CASE and MCP servers to make most of their data and content. 

Bridget Phillipson Secretary of State for Education's address picked up on much I had heard on the two preceding days with OECD and 1Edtech. Good to see her back ( see last year's BETT post) . Highlighting the transformative potential of AI and EdTech to make learning more inclusive, support teachers, and improve outcomes for all learners. Announces new safety standards, new digital skills pathways for teacher training, and a £23 million expansion of the EdTech Testbeds programme to build a strong evidence base for effective tools. 

I achieved everything in my original plan and then some. 

Squeezed into a smaller area of Excel this year but having spoken to the organisers, more exhibitors and certainly high footfall. Great to have themed stages with keynotes distributed around exhibitors. I spent most of my time in and around FE/HE zone. Still think could do with a bit more from ALT, Jisc , QAA and perhaps some more focus on Colleges and vocational learning.  

Great to see many of the Scots who made it down at the Scottish gathering kindly supported by SmartBoards. Good too to get great update on their products. The training and support they give users is first class- liked new mike through smartboard- and still like smartboard mini. 

Nice to see more thought on design and layout of the start up zone. Though apologies nothing really fired me up this year.  

TeachmeetBett26 on Teachmeet's 20th Anniversary. Many thanks to BETT organisers for super on site support. 

I did a two minute plug for learning design , Open Education  and for membership of ALT. Thanks too Everway/Texthelp for sponsoring cracking social at 02 Battle Bar and for old pal Dawn Holly-Bone from 2Simple for chairing so well. Was great to see new faces embracing Teachmeet methodology. Presentations here and tribute to Teachmeet history.  Every College should hold one at least once a year. Challenge is out to all attendees to organise one.

Here is very quick run down of what caught my eye and attention and some of my chats .

• Microsoft - sat through a few sessions to be up to speed with their new roll outs. I didn't go to all of their sessions mainly the What is new session. But you can get all of their sessions here.
• Google - Similarly spent some time getting on inside track . Some great sessions on using Notebook LM for research.

I am still really amazed that every College does not have tenancies on both Microsoft and Google platforms. It can be done at no cost, if you know how. Both are promoting a range of new tools within existing licensing costs and the best way to prevent any shadow IT developing. 

In main auditorium, teaching and learning theatre and Higher Education theatre - some practical workshops particularly around how AI is changing up operational areas of Colleges and Universities - from data to track skills and employment opportunities , answering phones and even students using vibe coding to create their own booking systems. Had quick coffee and catch up with Paul Mckean and Sue Attewell on Jisc AI work.  

Lots of AI with everything sat through presentations  and visited some of these stands. Last year Teachermatic was out in the lead for teacher content creation, now everyone is at that game , including Microsoft and Google.  More significantly emergence of tools using CASE and MCP.

Many amazing stands - big budget items. The Egyptian Education Authority had built a pyramid. 

Lots too on esports - which I still don't quite get.  I do get it as a gateway to games development and programming.

VR and AR it is still ClassVR leader of pack and interesting new tools for simulating interviews.  Metaverse learning and Body Swaps territory . Think every College should have a class set of VR head sets for appropriate activities. 

Liked this juice bar vending machine as an alternative to fizzy drinks. 

A few stands that I thought were selling Vapes - were really selling Vape detector systems. A sign of the times. 

Great conversations with ClickView , Cisco Training Academies and BodySwaps - it is great to hear they are going from strength to strength. Met some old Spanish friends who do lot around improving data and learning material flows for Colleges and Universities. I spent some time too revisiting C-Learning and their Merlyn Mind product. 

Useful conversation with Newcastle College group who are doing the right thing and rolling out CMALT to all of their educational technologists. Follow up conversation with their Rob Wraith on how they manage access and costs around tokenisation in Microsoft Co-Pilot. Basically how they set up permissions and controls so that the institution does not get additional bills. ( this is issue for many institutions moving ahead into this space) So critical that learning technologists and IT work together around this. 

Only spotted one awarding body - which may also be sign of times - assessment and certification really need to change.

But back to my theme of week it was really AI with everything - have a look at BrainFreeze stand useful to see they are explaining how their tool uses CASE and MCP.

Sorry to miss a sit down and proper catch up with Vic Boyd and Scott Renton from City of Glasgow College who were around too and many more colleagues from across vocational learning. We will catch up soon. 

On way down I spotted a very negative post about BETT from a 'leading' Scottish educational academic who I think has attended one BETT in the past- it was very down on the technological hegemony - but on all technology really. 

Yes, lots of selling of fantasies but some really useful learning for all. People make BETT not the technology. Everyone working in learning really needs an understanding of technologies - it is the only way to actually move classroom, institutional and global learning forward.  We all need a bit more #openscot. 

And a final big thanks for all the hospitality and good company I enjoyed. 

My week in London Reports

• Part One with OECD
• Part Two with IEdtech.
• Reports on Previous BETT conferences here.

I miss Wakelet as my tool of choice for summarising events like this. 

A Week in London #bettuk2026 #bett26 Part Two 1Edtech Why AI in Learning Needs Standards: Shared Context, Shared Trust , Westminster Hall.

Tuesday 20th January

1Edtech Why AI in Learning Needs Standards: Shared Context, Shared Trust , Westminster Hall. 

It was really useful to get high level OECD view on Monday and technical deep dive from 1Edtech on following day. Open technical standards still drive most of the global developments in technology and learning. 

I was a guest of 1Edtech last year too. The event last year had a specific focus on the open badge and other relevant standards. This year the focus was on AI and the place of open standards in the technical stack. I've a book chapter just published on this area. ( more in a later post) 

Great presentations and discussion showing how AI can bridge different educational lexicons when it has been trained. The challenge is being confident enough to start this process. 

• Japan, Korea  and France identified as world leaders in adoption of open standards - in terms of national data. 
• Korea - using AI already to map national competency standards to national qualifications. ( accelerates development process)
• Japan - Using the one roster standard to streamline the exchange of educational data between School Information Systems (SIS) and Learning Management Systems (LMS) across the country.
• France - Whole sale adoption of open standards to improve learning and data flows across their educational system. 

The discussion and debate was unavoidably technical. A lot focussing on what needs to be done to pre-existing content and data to give it context to work well with AI systems. 

Useful metaphor - example - the same ingredients can make a Pancake or a Yorkshire pudding. Currently a large language model with no context would not know which one you want.

When you have context. You can do more 

You can use an MCP Server - MCP servers are essential for building AI agents that can actually "do" things, rather than just talk about them.  It allows multi agentic workflows. MCP is a protocol and a standard , it acts as a "USB-C" connector for AI, allowing models to securely access local files, databases, and third-party services without requiring custom, one-off integrations. 

These systems use CASE 

• A data standard that allows educational institutions, employers, and edtech platforms to exchange competency data in machine-readable formats (JSON).
• Purpose: It replaces static, inefficient documents like PDFs or spreadsheets with standardized, digital frameworks that can be easily mapped, searched, and updated.

Key Components:

• Frameworks: Digital versions of academic standards or professional competencies.
• Items: Machine-readable statements of what a learner should know or be able to do.
• GUIDs (Globally Unique Identifiers):Every standard, skill, or competency is given a unique identifier, ensuring it can be recognized globally across different systems.
• Associations: Links that define how competencies relate to each other, such as aligning a local school curriculum with national or international standard.

Why is this useful 

• In the context of global learning (interconnected education,, sustainability, and international skills), CASE serves several critical functions:
• Interoperability for Global Education: As educational institutions operate internationally, CASE allows them to map their curricula, learning outcomes, and assessment rubrics to common global frameworks, facilitating easier student transfer and recognition of skills.
• Workforce Competency Mapping: CASE helps define and exchange skills needed for the global economy. It is used in higher education and corporate training to ensure that digital credentials and competency-based learning modules are recognized across different borders and platforms.
• Digital Credentialing: It enables the alignment of learning outcomes with micro-credentials and digital badges, allowing a skill earned in one country to be verified and understood by an employer in another.
• Reducing Inefficiency: By providing a common, machine-readable language, CASE eliminates the need for manual, error-prone, or time-consuming mapping of learning standards across different systems.

Example used Campus Mind - system can identify where student potentially needs some additional support and can build a personalised course from materials that institution already has across range of repositories including the virtual learning environment. 

Microsoft and Google are both building integrations. Jisc standards group moving ahead in UK.

Some examples 

1. Otus - taking data and learning materials from multiple sources.
2. French Teacher training Moodle platform - AI was used to - re-engineered with standards and context to allow individual training pathways - personalised for teachers.  The MCP server can now be used with  any learner management system. 

Overall and ties in well with OECD work.  

• Call to move away from general models of AI to local models of AI that capture context etc ( what OECD said)  
• To move forward all players need increased awareness of the open standards that are already available and ones in development. 

To move forward here data needs context added ( AI could help with that). It was great to catch up with Dominik Lukes and a number of like minded old friends.

So what does all this mean at national level.

• We really need SQA - Qualifications Scotland to get a move on here. This is much more than end of paper based certification. 
• More Scottish organisations should have appropriate membership of 1Edtech and I am going to see if I can help with that. 
• And a final plug anyone interested in these open standards should get along and or get a paper into their upcoming European Conference in Salonika.

At institutional level

• AI and MCP services can start bringing your data together securely. You will be  using local engine rather than opening up anything. Get a move on.
• Make sure you and or any suppliers you use are making most of open standards. Some of this should be hard wired into procurement guidance.   

All of the above set up BETT Conference very well, Part 3 to follow. 

A Week in London #bettuk2026 #bett26 Part One Pre Bett OECD Digital Education Outlook 2026

As ever, a very busy week, as the world's clans of educational technologists gather in London in and around BETT.

What was one post has become three posts as each event I attended really worth digging into.

Monday

OECD Digital Education Outlook 2026: Exploring Effective Uses of Generative AI in Education , The Law Society Hall Chancery Lane

The event was to launch the OECD recent research paper. It was good to meet some old chums from the European policy landscape.

It was great too to have an update from the Education Department's Susan Acland-Hood, who was confident and on the ball , reporting on the AI test beds happening in English schools that are all exploring the possible. 

This including a content store, a repository of documents, such as curriculum guidance and anonymized pupil assessments, to train AI models for better educational outputs. 

The key bit of all of this is criticality of developing local models 

"Launched in May 2025 with £3 million in funding, pools and encodes curriculum guidance, lesson plans and anonymised pupil work, to train AI tools that generate accurate, high quality educational content. Training on the content store increases accuracy of feedback on students’ work to 92%, up from 67%, meaning safer and more reliable use of AI in the classroom"

She also pointed out the refreshed English standards launched to coincide with BETT week. She also keyed up well the Education ministers speech on day one of BETT. 

Key messages are much more than cautious optimism and much more than a narrow focus on teaching and learning.

There is always a danger that the AI industry like IT industry before sells education fantasies and that is why it is so critical that education takes technology and uses it to build it's own closed models.

Education needs to develop specialist tools to amplify learning. We do need to redesign practice in ways that continues to support teacher agency.

Other work highlighted over day

• The work of Harvard's Bok Centre
• Open AI work around AI Schema to improve reliability of services for education and other areas. Would allow education to customise their own models.
• The emergence of Gemini for Education and Co-Pilot tools that can match and create content against available competency frameworks.

This was a useful paper to take to my second meeting of the week which was more technical about the standards needed to support ethical application of AI.



Pre conference I caught up with Joseph Jones CEO Saige Qualifications an Ofqual approved awarding body in England rolling out AI awards and training for pupils and teachers.

Main takeaways - 

• Education needs to start making more use of AI in a customised way to support learning and operations. 
• At a national level this means system change as well as policy and guidance.  I think we have latter but not former in Scotland.
• At institutional level requires operations , IT , learning technology and whole community to work more effectively together. Start building local agents now.
• As an institution you need that local data store and you need to start making effective use of your data
• For schools in Scotland - local authorities need switched on to this and there is probably a role for Education Scotland but certainly Scottish Education Department in creating something similar to English content store. 

Part Two to follow - 

Visiting #BettUK2026 #Bett2026 #tmBett26 #teachmeet20

It's that time again and I'm packing bags this weekend for a series of meetings in London while in and around #BettUK2026 #Bett2026

• Monday I am with OECD Exploring Effective Uses of Generative AI in Education.
• Tuesday I am with 1Edtech Why AI in Learning Needs Standards: Shared Context, Shared Trust.
• Wednesday I am @Bett - if you are down from Scotland please sign up for Scottish Clan gathering at 2pm . Many thanks to Smart Technologies for facilitating this - click logo for signup 

• Thursday I am @Bett and attending Bett Teachmeet which is also a celebration of 20 years of teachmeets  - Click Logo for signup - you don't have to present you can just come along. 

• Friday - I am trying to keep free for a general prowl around the exhibition area.

Over days at Bett I will catch up with latest developments from Microsoft , Google and the other big players and attend sessions around digital transformation in further and higher education.  I'm not presenting this year. 

If you are about and fancy a chat about UK educational market place then please get in touch. I am looking forward to catching up with old friends and new.

You can catch up with my previous BETT adventures here. 

As ever, I will summarise any useful leads here and I will bring opportunities back to relevant colleagues in colleges and Scottish education. 

A look back at 2025

It's been a busy 2025. I keep pinching myself . I am so lucky to have escaped the trenches of 9-5 and I am so enjoying the move back to interesting consultancy work. I did a bit of a reflective piece at one year out mark.

Mindful too that my freedom gives me scope and responsibility to flag up many of the challenges still facing great colleagues in Scottish College landscape - still under siege. There are a few more folks who have escaped and know exactly what is happening would be great to see them chipping in to discussions too rather than simply watching the sector being stifled.

I started 2025 with a post about sectoral challenges - I think things have got worse over the past year. I also framed my resolutions for year - which mostly I've achieved.

Quite a year. Started 2025 in a new TQER role at QAA and it's been busy since ,#bett25 , supporting open badges ( new book chapter about to arrive ) - keynoting at #oer25, visiting schools across Calgary and Edmonton for the #ScotlandEducationSummit, and co-chairing #ALTC25 in Glasgow and hosting many international visitors and supporting Royal Society of Arts in Glasgow.

Some highlights that mattered:

The #oer25 keynote was a real privilege - had a great day exploring the intersection of Open Education and AI. Open education is so much more than free resources - it's about systems, approaches, and making practice sustainable. Slides with extras here: https://lnkd.in/eASCiSqp

The week in Canada with SMART Technologies was amazing - super to spend time with innovative Scottish education colleagues visiting schools and building connections between our systems. Report here: https://lnkd.in/emiwjpCW

Refreshingly joined up - Edinburgh University's openly licensed AI advice for Scottish teachers, co-created with multiple national agencies. This is what good collaboration looks like: https://lnkd.in/eMNcYgCY

Co-chairing #ALTC25 in October was a real pleasure - fantastic to have the learning technology clans gathering in Glasgow for the first time: https://lnkd.in/eYNTsP9d and a privilege to launch #AmplifyFE impact report https://lnkd.in/ePuBWn86

Supported RSA in Glasgow helping with both a Civic Reception at Glasgow City
Chambers and a fun event at newly refurbished Citizens Theatre.

Found time for some great travel adventures to Morocco, Italy, France and Jordan.

Enjoying popping in and out of London to see our daughter too and we had a great family wedding in Leeds. 

What struck me across 2025: we're adopting AI faster than we're adopting open licences. Still a long journey in Scotland to achieve a place where Open Educational Practice is standard. But there's momentum - and the new Scottish Govt Digital Strategy gives room for optimism.

Grateful to everyone who engaged in conversations this year - at conferences, online, and over coffee in Glasgow. Love to all !

Looking forward to continuing the push in 2026. If your institution is experimenting with open badges or local LLMs I'd love to hear about it.

I'll be around #Bett26 and heading down for a pre conference session with 1EdTech - If you are in London let me know and we can catch up.

This year I am looking forward to joining in 20th anniversary celebration of #Teachmeet #Teachmeet26 on the Thursday evening. You can sign up and run a session here https://lnkd.in/e6YRAiM5

If you are Scottish based and not coming down for #Bett check out City of Glasgow College's Learning and Teaching Conference - open to all https://lnkd.in/e-W3ArfT . Great to see a former Cardonald College student keynoting.

As always you can follow my journey on my blog https://lnkd.in/eDP_bMsu
I've some more big news to come.

Next a post on what I'm looking forward too in 2026

#openscot #OpenEducation #OER #AIinEducation #ALTC25