Learning Conversations

I'm off to BETT on Friday afternoon. This is probably one of the biggest educational (K-12) technology shows in the world. The main reason I'm going is the TeachMeet ( http://teachmeet.pbwiki.com/TeachMeet08_London ) at 5pm, which adopts a model successfully used in Scotland. Participants sign up to do 7 minute presentations or 2 minute micro-presentations about a particularly aspect of technology-supported learning.

Normally, when you go to conferences you look at the list of delegates and, maybe, recognise one or two names. With the TeachMeet, because many of the people involved are active bloggers, it feels like I already know half the participants. People I'm looking forward to meeting (face-to-face) for the first time include:

Ian Stuart
Doug Belshaw
Paul Harrington
Drew Buddie

It's difficult to say exactly why I'm going to BETT this year. I haven't "taught" for over seven years now. Yet my work is hugely influenced by what I see happening in schools, and sometimes I even have the privilege of being able to influence how schools are supported. Effective CPD, that really changes the way schools & teachers work, has, for a long time, been a passion of mine. Central to that is understanding the demands on teachers and the opportunities available to them.

One of the key developments I see happening this year is a change in the content market. The Elearning Credits (ELC) scheme is stopping this year. So this artificially stimulated market (which has resulted in vast amounts of unused software in schools) will find itself struggling.

I have been talking with Eylan Ezekiel (and many others) for a while now about how learning content needs an Amazon-type environment. A marketplace for content producers. A place where anyone who produces content (from individuals to large companies, perhaps even Government quangos?) can place content for sale, or for free download. But critical to its effectiveness will be the things that Amazon does so well: incorporating user feedback, providing recommendations of other possible items, keeping in touch with customers, and offering ways of off-site promoting (or even selling) items through APIs and webpage widgets.

Eylan is now working for ODE, which appears to be doing exactly this. So I'm hoping to get a glimpse at what they're proposing. ODE is incubated by Pearsons, but are being given the freedom to work with other content providers. Pearsons seem to have recognised that (in an Ebay/Amazon/Google/Facebook world), the money is in the platform rather than in the content. Making sure that platform continually develops to meet the needs of the market will keep people using it.

The other thing I'm looking forward to is getting my hands on an Asus eeepc (aka an RM Minibook). From what I'm seeing, everyone who has used one has this strange urge come upon them to buy it at the earliest opportunity. So, I'm off to do some action research to see if the same happens to me! Although I think my results might be already skewed...

See you at BETT.