Learn 4 Life

What next for BETT and TeachMeet - beyond the lunatic fringe - why so serious?

January 17, 2010 on 8:06 pm | In BECTA, BETT 2010, Continual Professional Development, Digital Literacy, Digital Media, Mediated Reality, Peer to Peer, Web 2.0, advisory, distributed networking, informal learning, mediascapes, open source, teachmeet, twitter |

This year I overhead a comment to this effect -

“Looking around on the stands and at Open Source, TeachMeet etc. it seems people are being regarded far less as the ‘lunatic fringe’ and becoming more accepted.”

I often think that when you talk about new ideas and concepts applied to education, many people look at you with the same disdain they might display on finding out that you have told them their favourite uncle is a cross-dresser. “Yes dear - we know they do it but we don’t talk about that…”

That a similar attitude seems to persist for TeachMeet seems obvious and, so far, the mainstream organisations have fought shy of the big TM - it’s a well known secret but no-one wants to big it up or go public with it just yet.

But the fringe events - lunatic or otherwise - just may be the salvation of BETT in the coming years…and there has been some movement from the exhibition organisers this year and it’s all good.

The problem with BETT from a vendors’ view

I have worked on a couple of stands at BETT in the past with an excellent educational product but it’s been exceptionally hard to get people’s attention if it’s new or innovative and you are just starting out marketing. If you have ever worked on a commercial stand at BETT it can be a very dispiriting business believe me.

Trying to get people’s attention and being rebuffed or shot a dirty look as they push by in an ever increasing frenzy to get freebies off different stalls whilst running the gauntlet of leafletteers is not a very nice experience or, even, very good for your self-esteem especially if you are going out cold and unsolicited. Unless you can bribe them with a branded gonk or personalised pen - or other inducements and even then it’s a Sisyphean and quite thankless task as they make a grab for the goodies and are gone.

It’s like a ‘walk of shame‘ in reverse for the stall staff - most people really aren’t that interested - they are overloaded with info and bags and just often want somewhere just to sit down and the last thing they want to hear is a sales pitch - often it seems the firms (as Ian Usher pointed out) do more Business 2 Business than sell to the educational establishment.

The whole process is very decontextualised - people need to be hooked in by some particular serendipity; some amazing Son et lumière (like the LEGO stand this year) and then they will come or only because they have organised to see you in advance of the show.

The bigger brasher firms can build wonderful environments - little pods where they can pamper their punters into handing over the spondoolics and who can pay experienced presenters to wow them into semi-narcoleptic comatose acceptance and submission but the average stall holder has a fight on their hands for people’s attention and money.

Of course some teachers are just there for the jolly - they seem pretty clueless about what they need or even if they really need it and they will snub and denigrate and wriggle out of any social interaction with that look they have that sits between pressurised fear of the unknown and mild irritation brought on by the fact someone has had the affrontery to stop them in their ceaseless peregrinations around the show.

There they hurry by, like the lost souls in the second circle of hell of Dante’s Inferno, like dead wraiths cursed to be ceaselessly buffeted aimlessly around in circles lusting after things they could never have…

I Don’t Know What You Want (But I Can’t Give it Any More ).

Enter TeachMeet Takeover

But on the whole the education profession is more than receptive to “what works” and engages pupils - surprise, surprise they like to watch other teachers talking about their teaching and good resources and like to see exemplars of wonderful practice.

Enter Teachmeet Takeover and something different happens. Suddenly your stand is populated by teachers giving superb presentations (teachers are good at that) and they draw a crowd. This creates more of a relaxed and convivial atmosphere in some cases and in many of the events caused people to learn quite a few new things and, perhaps, even buy some commercial products.

The TeachMeet fringe events create a highly focused social concentration for genuine reflection on good teaching and learning practice.

Unlike previous years I was on the on the Open Source Cafe Stand where a lot of people were genuinely interested in the software and they were pro-actively electing to come and talk and learn from others - there’s a budding community of people truly interested in Open Source software for schools. The Open Source Cafe was run like a bar camp but there were some great fun moments when the Jo Claessens and Andy Wilson arrived from the BBC to liberate London’s monsters to publicise the excellent BBC Open Lab resources

So I was well positioned to ask some friends about what they thought was best about BETT2010 - it was nearly unanimous that it was the TeachMeet Takeover and fringe events that were most engaging. Have a listen to the few short vox pops below :

Lisa Stevenson explained what the TeachMeet Takeover phenomenon was:

I’m going to all the TeachMeet Takeovers because I find that really exciting talking about how you can use things for free and teachers talking about all the things they DO with all the stuff that we’ve got around us…what’s happened is the stands around us have volunteered to let a teacher take over their stand for half an hour and just present about things they use in the classroom using free stuff - it’s got nothing to do with the stand that they are on …I was on Rising Stars this morning and had nothing to do with what they do; they just gave me the time, the computer, the screen and the microphone and I just took over and talked about what I do in my classroom; because BETT’s really kind of like a Trade Show selling things and we want to sell what we do in our classroom and to show, it doesn’t matter if you haven’t got a big budget - there are lots of things you can do for nothing.

Dawn Hallybone also pointed to the TeachMeet Takeover as the main thing she had experienced at BETT. But with reference to most of the “content” at BETT she said :

Have I seen a lot that inspires me yet - no sorry.

BETT took off for me this year for a number of reasons.

The comms tech is getting more ubiquitous and invisible.

Despite the O2 network going down (presumably because of the concentration of iPhone users) people were communicating more than ever on Twitter and their numbers seemed to be growing - the ad hoc comms infrastructure within the building during the show between stallholders, teachers, advisers and almost much anyone else seemed to be starting to come together.

Stand Owners are becoming more receptive to TeachMeet

The blend of communication and “genuine” human interaction at show level was a new element. There seemed to be less of a disjunction between people and more of a positive engagement. The savvier commercial providers got the mix just right - people like Chris Ratcliffe of Scholastic definitely “get it” and were disseminating video blogs of their own about events around their stand including the TeachMeet Talks. Well done Chris!

Thousands of little social interactions were happening all over the place and you could see the human face of the use of tech - people meeting people they knew on twitter but never met in the flesh before - people renewing professional friendships - educationalists are highly gregarious so it worked and I would maintain that it was more authentic than other possible scenarios because all the participants are so engaged with learning. The changes at BETT could almost have been a metaphor for the change I predict coming in education….

The Theme of Fun

Throughout the show and all the fringe festivals there was a definite theme of “fun”. There was a game of Tig going on between Twitter users  - did you miss that? Yes, Tig, Tag whatever you want to call it - people were showing up on stands and tigging people. They could be commercial vendors or teachers or advisors - it didn’t matter - it was fun and it brought people together and broke down barriers to human communication - it was facilitated by apps like Twitter though that made it easier to say where people were and to broadcast out that you were coming to get them. In the Amplified session on Thursday we discussed the role of “play” in work. Here’s a couple of snippets from that conversation. Here Kevin Mulryne, of the National College for leadership and schools and children’s services, discusses the “fun” things that went on in his work at BETT.

At TeachMeet on the Friday it was fun - it always is - one of the highlights was Ian Yorston who told us about his role as ‘The Unreasonable Man’.

The quote in that video clip could be the ethos behind TeachMeet Takeover in some ways…no wonder he got such a rapturous response.

Again - highly entertaining and fun but also very informative…

I predict that as the tech gets more invisible, seamless and ubiquitous so the opportunities for serious fun will increase. As a species we are extremely ludic, playful to the extreme or we should be and learning should be fun - otherwise why do it? The elements of “play” will always conquer the dour naysayers in the long run - people take their play extremely seriously. Take this whole discussion on gaming on the Wednesday at the Amplified Education event….

What we saw at BETT this year was the beginning of a new way of doing old stuff - genuinely engaging educationalists breaking down the barriers to human interaction by using traditional well tried skills. I’d call it “Remixing Education” and it’s beginning to come into focus as people begin to understand that the underpinning technology no longer matters - it’s reaching such a mature level that the organisation and vision can be easily enabled now to cater to people’s individual needs around knowledge and skills and that those are in constant flux anyway as everyone moves forward into the 21st Century and new competencies.

MirandaMod Debates

I always enjoy filming the MirandaMod debates because they are held at BETT and are open to anyone to come and join in. It’s always touch and go if anyone will turn up but as we broadcast out onto Twitter when it is beginning they always do. And contributors always prove fascinating and are the spearhead for a lot of very innovative research. Many people Twitter in from abroad or ask questions around the video stream.

It’s about the people not the tech

It is a constant mantra - all these peripheral social activities at BETT have added up to a marvellous week. Whether you are a stall holder, a teacher allowed out for the day, senior leadership or a pupil it can be good fun.

So why isn’t it mainstreaming?

So I totally agree with Gareth Davies about the fact that the bigger government non-profit agency stands should encourage TeachMeet Takeover.

And the one big question I would ask is:

Why does Teachers’ TV never film or show anything to do with TeachMeet? If they did so - it would become more mainstream and then some proper infrastructure/ funding for dissemination could happen?

Failing that I suggest the TeachMeet crew ask for some funding from all the stands that supported BETT2010 this year to do a drill down mailout to individual teachers as suggested by Tom Barrett in previous campaigns. Getting a personalised letter would be good - even better would be mailshots sent out by all the regional LA TeachMeets and the stands punters who have data about who they have giving an event and informing people of what a TeachMeet is and where they can find one.

It’s heartening to see several messages from people on Twitter saying they are going to hold local events new to their area. What would be even better would be schools hosting an event in a place that is not necessarily the school and build a social evening out of it. There’s enough social scaffolding and event templates for this now.

When the time came - each region could point to BETT and The Education Show and build on this year’s success. And remember it’s not just teachers but everyone involved in educating their children. Why not get a few parents along next time as well …?

Breaking down the silos

Informal learning will be one of the massive growth industries in the coming years - I’ll leave the last word to Dughall Hine founder of School of Everything on his attitude to learning and tech that he espoused at Tedx Orenda on Wednesday Night (if you weren’t there video up soon…)

I’m not one of these people who get really excited by technology - I get excited when technology allows people to do real stuff - it’s fun…