BETT09

BETT is a major exhibition covering all aspects of ICT in schools.

I go every couple of years or so just to keep up to date with what is going on.

This feeds a personal interest and is relevant to my work as a school governor and as an IT consultant.

BETT is held at Kensington Olympia which is basically two halls each on two levels.

Actually, it's more complicated than that and you really need the map you are given to find your way around.

I was not really interested in finding my way around so I eschewed the map and just wandered around for a couple of hours looking at displays, demonstrations and leaflets on hardware, software, furniture, devices, websites and services.

It was a hectic and stimulating couple of hours. For example, I discovered I had a previously unknown interest in school furniture. There were a few highlights, such as the remote teaching for Gifted and Talented children, but overall there was little that was truly innovative or exciting. Almost everything was based around PCs and interactive whiteboards and virtually nothing on new platforms like the iPod/iPhone and the Wii.

Apart of the technology, BETT is famous for the way that its visitors, mostly teachers, devour the freebies, such as pens, like a swarm of unusually hungry locusts. I have enough pens to keep me going for ever so I didn't take any of them. However, I did somehow accumulate four cloth shopping bags, three other bags and a t-shirt. Not bad for a morning's work!