Last year I published a guide to BETT (and other conferences) for subscribers to the free newsletter, Computers in Classrooms. I think the advice is still relevant. I looked at the following:
You can read that online here.
Woo hoo! I have now finished preparing my presentation, "20 must-have tools in 45 minutes". Except that it's now 31 tools in 60 minutes, with one "tool" that I'll mention in passing, plus a further 7 tools if there is time to go into them.
Like I said before (see link above), my presentation is for leaders and managers or would-be leaders and managers of educational ICT.
Hope to see you there.
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:
I recently wrote about Collaborate for Change. Here’s a very brief video about it, and an interview with Lord Jim Knight, the Schools Minister in the previous government in Britain, and Dave Smith, organiser-in-chief. The interviewer in each case is Russell Prue, of Anderton Tiger Radio.
It’s coming up to that time of year, when companies unveil their new ed tech goodies, old friends and colleagues meet up, people give and attend talks and demonstrations, and we all go away either inspired or cynical, and completely shattered, in equal measure. Yes, it’s the BETT show, a 4 day conference-stroke-exhibition-stroke-meet-fest which attracts people from all over the world. This year it starts on the 12th January, ie next week, and I thought it might be useful to make my own suggestions about what you might like to see. These suggestions are all based on my knowledge of the people involved or past personal experience, so I don’t pretend to cover all possibilities: check out the BETT website for the full programme, and register for free in advance. Today, I’m looking at Day 1, Wednesday 12th January.
Here’s an interesting conundrum: why is it that, given the trend towards distributed leadership and collaborative change, a lot of conferences targetted at leaders seem to consist of a succession of people lecturing to the audience?
There is something heroic about working away on a computer while the rest of the world sleeps, with only a cup of tea and a distant street lamp to keep one company. But the health benefits of caffeine-fuelled nights are yet to be discovered. Thus it was that around four weeks ago I decided that a radical change in my lifestyle was in order.
There’s a reason that the strapline of this website is “The site for leaders and managers of educational ICT”: leading and managing are different things. That isn’t to say that someone cannot be both a good leader and a good manager, but they may have to work a little harder on one aspect than on the other.
Too much information is such a ubiquitous problem that it even has its own three letter abbreviation: TMI – although that is usually applied in the context of someone online telling you something that you really didn’t want to know. However, it’s also a problem experienced by anyone who runs a team, or who requires information in order to take a decision.
You would think that providing timely information would be just the thing to get you applauded. However, as the song from Porgy and Bess tells us, it ain’t necessarily so. It really all depends on what the information is, and to whom you’re making it available.
Do you have a policy about publishing comments on your blog posts?
Here’s an interesting-looking project, with a video about it. I don’t think the video does the project justice, and I think that it’s unfortunate that when we see three youngsters leaping into the air with joy at the end of the film, it’s when they’re leaving the school building at the end of the day!
(c) Terry Freedman All Rights Reserved