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January 11, 2006

BETT Zoo Report


I attended BETT today, an educational technology exhibition directed at primary and secondary education and attended by 26,000 people. It filled several large halls with E3/CES size megabooths which was impressive but I have to say it was tough to find much innovation.

A few thoughts on what I did see:


Lots of games ready to play and integrate into curriculum and a lot of interest in them.


A new game modded from the Atari Neverwinter Nights to teach basic math and science that looked exactly like the $15 million dollar original but had learning baked smoothly in.

So many booths had the word 'Mobile' in them, but so few had anything new - it was mostly tablets, laptops and a few ready made pda games/learning apps. What was missing was content production tools with support for mobile phones, pdas and game platforms for both educators and students to create their own content.

However, there was at least one cool example sponsored by the BBC directed at teens to create their own content.

Nesta Futurelab also had some cool things to show from games to a context aware space learning program that showed planets in relation to where you were standing with detailed information and a 1.5m tall pointer that showed where in the sky the planet was. They also supported BETT Mobbing, which you can learn more about below.

BETT Mobbing was a way to stay informed of events at the conference via mobile phone text messages. I just registered my phone and selected a few interest categories and received updates throughout the day. Here's their welcome message:

This message is to confirm that you have successfully signed up to the following BETT Mobbing group/groups: Learning With Games - Wednesday Learning With Games - Friday Mobile Learning - Wednesday Mobile Learning - Friday

When you arrive at BETT, go to the NESTA Futurelab stand (Y30 in the National Hall) to collect your BETT Mobbing badge – this way everyone taking part will be able to identify other ‘BETT Mobbers’. You will then receive text messages throughout the day notifying you of interesting stands to be ‘mobbed’ - messages will be sent to you in plenty of time for you to get to the stand.

Share your favourites!
While you are at the show text 447800003245 to tell the BETT Mobbing team about anything you’ve seen that has amazed, surprised and delighted you, or to say what you thought of the mobbing events. Your recommendations could be passed on to fellow ‘Mobbers’ so they can share your discoveries. Please note - this number will only be active from the 11th of January.

This was a great way to get alerts on what was happening across this huge event. Here's a picture below of a small BETT Mob gathering for a discussion on mobile learning at the Handheld Learning booth:

I'd recommend the approach to other large conferences.

Of note, I organized my first Flashmob 3 years ago in Picadilly Circus for an Interclass conference I helped design. It was more fun instantly dispersing into the crowd than the crazy chant we did when we got there. It was a bit worrying to see my US colleagues not know how to send and receive text messaging when I was explaining the exercise! ...sometimes with innovation you have to start with the basics!

Posted by Ron Edwards at January 11, 2006 10:39 PM

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