Bett show looks to wider world
The largest education tech show around focused even more on benefits for schools and global trade opportunities
Bett 2014 had a larger focus on international opportunities than ever, including a massive UK Trade and Investment Export Theatre boasting rows of booths for export-opportunity meetings, and a section in the free programme devoted to matching up vendors with distributors and vice versa in far-flung locations.
There the canny education IT reseller looking beyond Blighty could hold exploratory talks with a distributor in Hungary, say, or New Zealand. Bett itself has been busy spinning off its concept, with baby Betts tipped soon to appear in various locations abroad.
In fact, according to organiser i2i, the expo billed as the world's largest education technology show had more of value than ever to offer attendees - mostly teachers and other educators - including three associated summits - for school leaders, workplace learning, and technology in higher education - and six Learn Live demo theatres. Not part of the event but in association with it were six fringe summits including Scandinavia@Bett, Intel Education and Microsoft Theatre.
Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove (pictured, right) opened the four-day show, which is now in its 30th year, with a keynote speech in the large central Bett Arena, which was oversubscribed as usual - standing room only inside, and plenty of people queued up outside the doors to hear any pearls of wisdom.
"Technology from all the exhibitors here is helping to transform and invigorate the learning experience for young people. There's the very best of British innovation, from hardware to software, solutions and services," Gove said.
He named companies including TSV Education, Frog, and Little Bridge as top education tech companies from the UK that are leading the world and doing really well selling to it as well. Frog is being used in classrooms in 14 different countries, for example, allowing children to connect through a single cloud-based learning platform.
"I believe we need education systems that are open, creative - capable of using technology for planning, structuring flexibility and adapting to change," Gove said.
The new curriculum that is replacing the simplistic computer literacy-focused IT classes of the past from September this year would focus on that as well, he promised, teaching kids coding and computer science, knowledge that should remain useful and set them up better for more advanced learning either in tertiary education or the workplace.
"We are looking to recruit 400 ‘master' teachers at the top of their game in computer science to train other teachers," Gove said.
It's no surprise to see that Bett generally follows broader IT industry trends, which this year means mobility, security and big data in particular. The feature stand of education technology specialist Professor Stephen Heppell - who also spoke on the subject in the Arena - this year was all about big data.
This was not so much about the IT problems related to the massive volumes, velocities and varieties of big data that those in the channel hear so much about, but the use of big data concepts to transform learning. Heppell believes educators should be interested in big data and harnessing it in the classroom.
The stand was sponsored by VAR European Electronique. James Penny, solutions director at European Electronique, said that sometimes the ability of IT to benefit education outcomes - particularly some of the newer concepts, such as student-centred learning - is overlooked. Here is where the channel can genuinely add value.
"A lot of stuff that Stephen (Heppell) has been working on for many years is how the infrastructure for schools and learning organisations can actually support a lot of learning initiatives," he said. "We work with some schools and it's not possible because their technology cannot support some of the things that students are trying to do."
One of the things that European Electronique -- with Heppell -- has been thinking about is what Penny calls "reconceptualising the network" - rethinking the way personal and organisation-owned devices and tools are connected and must work together, as opposed to just thinking about the devices. BYOD and mobile are happening, at schools, not just in the workplace, and have to be enabled.
That is going to mean, according to Penny, doing a lot more over the cloud and storing a lot more in the cloud too. All of which presents a range of challenges.
The big Friday lunchtime draw last year at Bett was particle physicist and TV personality Professor Brian Cox - this year, it was one of the world's most famous living explorers, Sir Ranulph Fiennes.
Sir Ranulph talked about his expeditions, and how IT has helped adventures in the remoter parts of the globe benefit, for example, schools. Some 43,000 schools were connected to his latest expedition - a 2,000-mile first crossing of Antarctica in winter, in temperatures as low as -90ºC and almost complete darkness.
When it comes to channel players, all the usual suspects - RM Education, Stone Group, Viglen, et al - were out in force. Many did not invest in stands of their own, but were located in partnership with a leading vendor.
Many of the listed highlights, though, weren't really that much about technology at all, although there were some, such as the session on videoconferencing in schools.
Perhaps, given the inexorable - and quite sensible - swing of things towards end-user benefits and outcomes across the IT industry in general, this is not surprising.
Resellers and other technology providers know only too well that they are increasingly asked to focus on helping the customer - rather than simply selling a product or service.
For example, the Big Ideas session in the Arena saw Jon Briggs - the UK "Voice of Apple Siri" - introduce a panel of inspirational educators headed by Xavier Prats Monné, deputy director-general for education and culture at the European Commission, to talk about Europe and the future of education.
The panel included the current headmaster of Eton, Tony Little, as well as representatives from high schools and academies, who explained what they were doing at their schools and where they saw things going - a priceless opportunity for any reseller grappling with the vagaries of public sector deals to get an inside lead.
Groups of school pupils were brought in for various sessions, including the Heppell big data promo, to reveal what they'd really like to see in the classroom in terms of technology, and explain the benefits as they see them.
Bett exhibitors proffered the usual range of brightly coloured gimmicks and gadgets, including robots and the branded giveaways like pens and mints that such shows always attract. However, the most popular gimmick, without a doubt, was the on-stand cocktail bar (pictured, left) run by VAR Millgate, offering both alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails made to order from a menu of some six or seven.
A Millgate spokesperson told CRN the idea was less to seal deals or sell anything than to simply get a chance to explain to educators what a channel partner could provide.
Initially at least, the results seemed excellent - teachers, one might suspect, rarely get the chance of a tipple during a working day. "We opened at 10am, and gave the first drink away at two minutes past, and the barman's been flat out ever since," Millgate's man said.