#bett2015

One of the best moments at BETT 2015 was, without any doubt, the talk of Sir Ken Robinson. 

His TED talk: "How school kills creativity" was watched more than 30 million times on TED. In 1998 he was an advisory committee on creative and cultural education. In 2011 he was listed as “one of the world’s elite thinkers on creativity and innovation” by Fast Company magazine, and was ranked among the Thinkers50 list of the world’s top business thought leaders.

He was a great source of inspiration during my studies in education, because his point of view was so reflective of my ideal of education. So being in the audience was a dream that came true!

It's a shame that his talk is not available online, so I decided to provide some highlights about it.

Sir Ken Robinson started talking about the transformative nature of technologies and about the promotion a "revolutionary education" with a bottom-up perspective. 

He compared the OCSE Pisa assessment system to: "Eurovision song contest for education", because it's just based on rating scales that are supposed to be objective, but they don't count other factors such as creativity. 

The education as we know it is based on a industrial imprinting, rather than a human process. We should have a new sense of possibilities fostering:

* Imagination 

* Creativity 

* Innovation

valuing original ideas, vs 

* Conformity

* Compliance

* Linearity

typical of Mass education, that recreates obsolete Taylorist-Fordist logics.

Sir Ken Robinson thinks the real challenge is what you make for granted, integrating a strategic power. 

Schools are obsessed with culture, but education is about people and talent.

Then he showed this two touching videos:

Highlighting the importance of the human factor and creativity.

He closed his talk with a quotation of Anaïs Nin — 

I had the chance to attend BETT 2015 here in London.

What's BETT?

Bett is the world's leading learning technology event and has been bringing innovation and inspiration to the education sector for over 30 years. Join us, along with over 35,000 of your peers, at ExCeL London in January. Read more: http://www.bettshow.com/Content/About-Bett-2015#ixzz3Pv8cY3mn

The premises presented online are more promising, than what actually is BETT in reality. This is the 2nd year in a row I attend this event, but so far it seems that the technologies presented are more or less the same. 

The BETT exhibition is definitely huge, but while walking down the booths you have the impression to live a deja-vu... Similar to what happens with cartoons when the designers try to save time using recurring backgrounds. 

A lot of VLEs (more or less the same of last year): Canvas and Firefly above all. A lot of interactive projectors, pointed on the floor, on the walls, on the ceiling. A lot of touch tables, small, medium, big size... And so on.

However the focus of the year was definitely addressed to some "STEM" tools, such as 3D printers and circuitry, and code clubs, because of the requirements of the National Curriculum in the UK. I guess that for an event like this one, incredibly ICT oriented, the switch to "Computational Thinking" is everything, but simple.

The presence of companies like:

Solidlabs: Primo;

Technology will save us;

Code club;

Ultimaker;

Makerbot;

is definitely a sign of the times that are changing, and maybe we can hope for a better future. 

I think it's important to consider digital literacy skills as necessary (how to create a document or how to use an app to create a more engaging lesson plan), but the "computational thinking" approach is mandatory for future generation of learners... That's why maybe the BETT exhibition is a good starting point for innovation, but it's almost obsolete, it's not reacting promptly to the changes that are going on out there, in the real world. 

The highlight of my trip to Bett 2015 was meeting Sir Ken Robinson. Yes, actual Sir Ken Robinson (@sirkenrobinson on Twitter). Now I don't want to come across all fan-girly or anything here, but... SIR KEN ROBINSON! I cannot imagine anyone reading this blog not knowing of Sir Ken, but just in case such a person exists, you should totally watch this:

And then this:

This too:

Anyway, back to me, and meeting Sir Ken! I found out that he was doing a book signing so an hour or so before, I scoped out the location. I noticed that people were starting to gather so I hovered for a while. A queue started forming so I decided to stay put. About 40 minutes later I found myself 10 people from the front of the queue for the book signing! Sir Ken was signing copies of his book "Out of Our Minds" - there were about 100 books available and they were free to those that had queued up (what a class act Sir Ken is!)

When I got to the front of the queue I managed to avoid gushing... actually I was a bit tongue tied (very unusual for me) so poor Sir Ken was forced to initiate conversation. I basically said "I'm Martine"... he asked where I was from and I explained I was from Guernsey and worked for Guernsey College. He said he liked Guernsey - I asked if he'd been and he said yes, years ago. So obviously, I invited him back! He was really nice and friendly, I probably came across as a slightly odd fan girl! On reflection I should have probably said thank you for the book...