The title comprises the theme I’ll be following in my seminar at the BETT show. It’s called “20 must-have tools in 45 minutes”, and is firmly targetted at leaders and managers of ICT or educational technology – or people who aspire to such a position. What that means in practice is that I’ve followed these principles:

Perspective

Whilst many of these tools have been, or no doubt could be,  used in the classroom, I’m not concerned with that in this presentation. I’m coming at this from the point of view of someone who needs to be on top of their leadership/management job in all sorts of ways. So I’ve chosen what I think are the most appropriate tools for the job, which does not always mean the latest, most sexy, or even Web 2.0. It doesn’t always mean “free”, either, and sometimes it doesn’t even mean a “tool” in the sense of being an application as such. Confused? Then come along and be put out of your misery!

Experience

I’m basing the presentation on two aspects of my experience: experience of being a leader and manager of ICT in school, local authority and self-employed roles; and experience of having actually used the tools I’d like to recommend.

Low barriers to entry

I don’t see the point in recommending something if it’s impossible to use or costs the earth. Everything I recommend is either free, or easy, or both – although I hope you won’t take that to mean I’m free and easy!

Bonus: I'll actually be covering 30 must-have tools in 60 minutes!

Please note that if you attended my BETT seminar last year entitled “Driving your vision”, there will be some repetition in terms of my recommendations. There is some new stuff, and I’m coming at this from a slightly different perspective, but I wanted to forewarn you. I hate it when I go to presentations by the same person, which have different titles but the same content. This does not fall into that category, but there is definitely a degree of overlap.

Now, please do book up for the seminar, and if you do  attend please say “hello” at the end of it.