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. 

Open Badges , Digital Credentials and Open Standards #Bett2024 #Bett24 Digital Badging Commission #openscot

Surely time for all qualifications to be digital !

This post reflects on a London 1Edtech gathering and the work of the UK Digital Badging Commission.  

Pre #Bett24 I was kindly invited to contribute to cross sectoral meeting with 1Edtech along with delegates from across the UK University and College landscape.  Thanks to Gill Ferrell who now leads for 1Edtech in Europe for kind invitation.

As an aside, I was amazed by transformation of StErmins Hotel a far cry when it was a run down hotel and the cheapest option for Westminster meetings. 

The meeting in London was excellent for highlighting the adoption of open standards around the world and the relative intransigence of the UK as a whole. It is worth having a dig into these slides from CEO of 1Edtech Curtis Barnes.  There were some other really excellent presentations and great discussion on day. If you really don't know what I am talking about here have a look at the standards themselves. Open standards are important - what allows you for instance to get emails on lots of devices. 

I led some national policy developments here from 2013 and I carried the lessons forward into my practice.  In a College setting we adopted Canvas partly as Canvas Credentials (formerly Badgr) brings open recognition for all learners. Having awarded badges to students and lecturing staff for two years I moved on just as our curriculum team were rolling out badges for meta-skills to the students.

It will be interesting to see how this approach develops and what reception this has from our learners.  There is huge scope here, if the College can push this on. Interesting too to see that Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities have adopted Canvas to support their micro-credential initiatives. 

It is concerning to see how slow progress has been around adoption of open standards for digital certification. I am glad to be a contributor to the UK Digital Badging Commission.  Being well led out by Patrina Law. 

In a global first, Ufi VocTech Trust and The RSA have launched the Digital Badging Commission to broaden the understanding, development and adoption of digital badges by accrediting organisations and employers.

Have a look at work to date of the UK Digital Badging Commission and you will see some green shoots. 

I was surprised and pleased  to see developments here between SQA and Skills Development Scotland around ways to display credentials in MyWorldofWork. But perhaps more impressed by the nascent Department for Education record of Post 16 learning. The vision is that  a learner can enroll on a course simply by a scanned QR code and can maintain their own record of achievements. See presentation above for details on these projects in development.  

I think biggest blocker here are the policy makers. A special shout out to City and Guilds and NCFE in England who have pushed on with developments in this space and as a Scottish Employer SCCC for pushing on badges for workforce accreditation. It would be good to see a fresh vision piece in this space from Scottish Government. 

The Digital Badging Commission includes representatives from educational organisations, awarding bodies, tech companies, and others interested in the future of learning and skills recognition.

Key themes and points discussed recently - 

Opportunities for Acceleration: The group discussed policy developments that could accelerate the adoption of digital credentials, including the potential of a national digital learner record and linking it to work experience data. DfE's "Project Titan" and the "Digital Wallet" work by DSIT were mentioned as relevant initiatives.

Barriers to Adoption: Several barriers were identified, including:

• Familiarity with paper-based credentials.
• Lack of a centralized wallet/store - perhaps not needed.
• Complexity and intelligibility for users.
• Perception that the metaphor of badges is not useful and devalues qualifications. The need for clearer definitions and a unified taxonomy was emphasized
• Confusion around terminology (badges vs. micro-credentials vs. qualifications).
• Quality assurance challenges.
• Employer scepticism and or lack of awareness.
• Recruitment processes lagging behind in recognizing digital credentials.
• And or many HR and OD systems don't use open standards.
• Lack of joined-up thinking across the UK's different educational systems.

Driving Change: How things might change 

• Regulatory mandates for awarding bodies to provide digital certifications and wallet adopting open standards. 
• Starting with smaller-scale projects (e.g., Foundation Apprenticeships) to test and build infrastructure.
• Focus on qualifications issued to schools, colleges, and work-based learning providers.
• Developing case studies showcasing the real-life use of digital credentials.

The ongoing conversation highlights the potential of digital credentials to transform learning and skills recognition, but also captures the challenges that need to be addressed to achieve widespread adoption and ensure that these credentials are valuable for both learners and employers.

I know Patrina and team are keen to talk to employers large and small about their view of digital certification. If you are a Scottish employer please reach out to Patrina using LinkedIn contact above. 

My own view it should be digital qualifications supported by open standards for all. You don't need a centralised store just verifiable credentials. Learners without digital access should always be able to access a paper or alternative format. 

#Bett25 #Bett2025 How Was My Bett

I think I say this most years. I am really lucky to have time to attend BETT and given that privilege it is important that I share my own reflections.

Will be remembered as year of big storm up north. I think everyone from Scotland will have a travel tale as all trains and planes cancelled at one point on Friday and trains on Saturday too. We made it home on Sunday. 

Here is a quick summary of who I met and what I discovered at this year's BETT25 Conference . It was nice not presenting this year and just being able to move around. I missed last year as I was in Ankara with Turkish Qualifications Authority. 

I was a guest and contributor at an excellent Tuesday pre conference event held by 1EdTech really around global intransigence to adopt open standards - I'll blog about that next.

This was the year when - shock horror - private consultants and private companies had to pay to attend BETT. I am chair of an educational charity and got my ticket that way. It seems fair enough that private sector folks pay for entry as a stand at Bett is a really expensive investment. Still lots of scope for meetings in an around London during event. I did notice that the World Education Forum has moved from the Monday and Tuesday of this week to a later date in April. I wonder if that will in time impact international policy makers attendance at BETT.


Here is my quick summary and observations

1. Queen Elizabeth line to Excel is a revelation for travelling to and from venue and opens up possibility of accommodation across London. ( though others will have spotted that last year)
2. I was staying between St Martins Kings Cross and Excel, to make it easier to catch up with daughter. Whitechapel was great fun, even managed a curry night with old city pal in his favourite spot. Tayyabs , the lamb chops amazing - I'll be back.
3. Ministerial address really excellent and on point - though I've heard a few good ones in past. Challenge is that the changes actually happen ( and also the education minister lasts more than a year) but sense that a vision is in place. But sense too from delegates that things on the technical front/blended learning agenda, have slowed down. I do think that the content is king rather than competency based models are winning the arguments at moment in terms of curriculum design. See too the anti-mobile phone lobby. Some bits of system are just so wilfully backward.
4. Probably less stands but still two halls full and busy on Wed and Thursday and a lot to get around.
5. Huge esports area, seems to have got bigger and large global area taking up one side of exhibition space. In centre a UK pavilion and lots of action from Department for International Trade ( will this lessen now world education forum not on as present ?) but no real Scottish exhibitor and or agency presence. The international stands made UK pavilion look puny.
6. Smartboards still everywhere but getting better and better , AI with everything and loads of programmable robots for every stage of learning.
7. Start Up areas kind of spread about - so not as easy to find and talk to new companies - did meet some Scottish edtech start ups - I hope they got value from BETT. If I can help them I will. 
   
   
   
8. I attended some key notes and sessions. Perhaps just me but I found particularly those in HE Advance area to not be well enough organised or themed and/or well that relevant. Perhaps organisers need to work more closely with Jisc and Association of Learning Technology - but may just have been my timing. I know I missed some great sessions on assessment on day one and on AI on Friday. So may just have been sessions that I attended.
9. Apple Education seemed to have more of a presence than previous years - perhaps trying to play catch up with Microsoft and Google but while I heard about great developments on Apple classroom front - hard to see how they can make up lost ground.
10. The size of London Grid for Learning Stand almost as big as Canva and Kahoot. Figured out why and lessons to be learned. They run an Appstore for schools and vendors pay to get inside this. Sensible really and good model for GLOW. The London system supports more schools , teachers and learners than GLOW - I sense too eye on rest of England in terms of services for schools and academy trusts.
11. Well done Smartboards for facilitating a Scottish edtech gathering on Wednesday afternoon. Was amazed no one from Education Scotland along at this - and indeed at Bett25 - really not a good idea to have no feet on ground. 
12. Panel session with English old guard Mary Bousted, Jim Knight , Robert Halfon - agree with one statement that English system has an obese curriculum thin on skills and competencies and weighed down with too much content.
13. TeachmeetBett25 I got to for a change and did a two minute plug for learning design and for membership of ALT - thanks too Everway/Texthelp for sponsoring cracking social at Millennium Dome and for old pal Dawn Holly-Bone from 2Simple for chairing so well.
14. Bonus additional day in London. We walked from Whitechapel across London to the West end, stopping for pie and mash in Smithfield and ending back at Aldgate - for excellent fresh pasta at Emilia's. ( a new chain to me) 

As usual I targeted having 30 minute meetings with 10 minutes in between to get around conference. It made for a busy two days but best way to make most of BETT.

Useful bits and bobs with some plugs at end -

Adobe 

Express is so good for education and now with more AI built in great for animation https://www.adobe.com/education/express/?

Microsoft - marching on on many fronts. Got along to some great sessions from Mike Tholfsen. He has helpfully blogged about these sessions and included his presentations. Here are some direct links. Liking particularly some of the new Canvas by Instructure integrations. Not sure about the Microsoft Designer plug by offering all attendees a chance to create our own badge avatar - but Microsoft designer is cool. 

AI for Educators from Microsoft useful on line course https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/training/paths/ai-education/
More AI for Educators Resources https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/educator-center/topics/ai-for-education
AI classroom Toolkit https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/educator-center/instructor-materials/classroom-toolkit-unlock-generative-ai-safely-responsibly
Overview of what is new https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/educationblog/whats-new-in-microsoft-edu-bett-2025-edition/4291951

Google - again moving on many fronts attended some excellent sessions AI and other developments all summarised in one place https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/bett-2025/ 

Really interesting stuff is Google integration of Gemini, Video, Sheets and Docs and on going development of Notebook LM. 

You can find that in link above. You find 11 new ways Google can help you here https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/ai-tools-education-2025

IBM Interesting stuff from Justina Nixon Santil https://www.ibm.com/think/insights/ai-skills-you-need-for-2025

Intel 

Still plugging their excellent Skills for Innovation programme

https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/education/intel4education/programs.html

Shameless Plugs 

Great to see and chat to Teachermatic Team Bett Gold award winning solution.

Caught up with Louise Jones and Thinglink - an amazing platform and still not used widely enough in Colleges and schools.

Padlet , Canva and Wakelet still brilliant. 

This for English composition looks interesting https://olex.ai/ and another competitor for Grammerly https://lex.page/

The  Daiverse Project  looks interesting for inclusion https://daiverse.eu/

On hunt for some funding - this potentially useful 

Though Colleges and training providers should be looking at grant funding from https://ufi.co.uk/

Great to see 

All the Scottish Edtechs who made journey and stayed the course and everyone else of course

- special mention to Graham Brown-Martin and Tony Parkin who I haven't seen at Bett for years and Mags Amond from Ireland doing her stuff at Teachmeet and Dawn Holly-Bone 2Simple and Charlie Love - Bett award winner. 

Sorry to miss around conference arena 

Dom Lukes , Vikki Liogier , Stuart Walker , Matt Wingfield , Elyan Ezekiel, Dan Fitzpatrick, Sara De Freitas, Debs Hill,  ClickView team , Scott Renton from City of Glasgow who made decision to head north before storm hit. 

And special shout out to  Prof Stephen Heppell who is normally a fixture but laid low - still found time to offer advice on Brick Lane Curry spots. Get well soon. 

For me funniest moment - International Teachmeet on immersive rooms - a really good session from Finland. Where Finnish colleague repeatedly asked us if we were "aroused"  apparently we should always ask students how 'aroused' they feel. You must be 'aroused' to learn. 

I'll not take that approach with Scottish staff ;-) . In fairness what was showcased was an immersive learning space - four walls of any image you want with suitable sound effects from forest to nightclub rave.   

Reflections on #BETT23 #Bett2023

 

#BETT23 , #BETT2023 What I will be up to.

I'll be around for another flying visit to Bett23 - I wonder how much Artificial Intelligence will be on display ? Is that a pun? 

I'll be around Thursday and Friday  

At moment I am visiting and/or meeting and presenting  

• ThingLink
• Genially 
• Intel  ( presentation Thursday lunchtime)
• Fujitsu
• Click-View 
• Microsoft Education 
• Google Education 
• Advantis Systems/Class VR
• Instructure Canvas  
• ALT Session ( Association of Learning Technology) 

I am looking for innovative partners and potential sponsors for our next year's Learning and Teaching Conference potentially March 2024 . A great way to bring innovative solutions to the Scottish College Sector as well as interesting partners and projects I can bring to a large and ambitious College.

I think I have figured out way to bring AR/VR to the College in a cost effective way but always open to opinions and solutions.

My focus on hybrid learning and how best to support a large ambitious metropolitan College with 30,000 student population and broad curriculum. 

I don't need new MIS, VLE, Assessment , Proctoring or Video capture systems etc 


My diary is almost full - if you want a meeting reach out to me on twitter @joecar


I look forward to meeting friends old and new.


Reflections last few years BETT

And some tips from seasoned BETT visitor 

#BETT22 , #BETT2022 Overview and Report

#BETT22 , #BETT2022 What I will be up to.

 

I'll be around for another flying visit to Bett22 . I think there will be lots of good things to share and I am sure the educational community will be excited to be back together again.

I'll be around Thursday and Friday - as usual heading home as #Teachmeet Bett stars 

At moment I am visiting and/or meeting 

• ThingLink
• Intel 
• Fujitsu
• Click-View 
• Microsoft Education 
• Google Education 
• Advantis Systems/Class VR
• Instructure Canvas  

I am looking for innovative partners and potential sponsors for our annual Learning and Teaching Conference scheduled for Tuesday 28th June 2022. A great way to bring innovative solutions to the Scottish College Sector.

My focus on hybrid learning and how best to support a large ambitious metropolitan College with 30,000 student population and broad curriculum. 


My diary is almost full - if you want a meeting reach out to me on twitter @joecar


I look forward to meeting friends old and new.


Reflections last few years BETT

And some tips from seasoned BETT visitor