Today sees the beginning of the BETT show at Olympia, the annual 4 day celebration of what David Buckingham dubbed the 'educational-technological complex'. It looks to be a somewhat different sort of show this year, with hardly any government agencies represented and considerably less money to go around.
For many, the main advantage of BETT is the CPD and networking opportunities it provides rather than the showcase of shiny goodies, for which a strong case would have to be made in the budgets of all but the most well funded establishments. Open Source Schools was delighted to be provided with a seminar slot once again this year: Miles Berry, David Willmot, Paul Haigh and Alan Bell will discuss ways of saving money with open source at 13:15 on Thursday 13th January in Gallery 2 - all are most welcome. Continuing the theme of last year's OSS presentation, open source / free programming tools BYOB Scratch, StarLogo TNG and Google's App Inventor will also be on show in Computing at School's presentation at 10:45 on Thursday 13th January, also in Gallery 2. Friday 14th sees Ian Usher presenting in the Club Room at 12:00 on 'Smoke, mirrors, white elephants and learning platforms', and David Mitchell's Wordpress-powered primary blogs will be showcased in Gallery 2 at 13:15. Miles Berry is also taking part in a panel for the new UK Education Leaders conference at BETT on 'ICT and Learning for Less'
The community involvement that characterises open source at its best is an integral feature of the TeachMeet movement, which can be experienced by all through the extensive TeachMeet Takeover programme and, for those lucky enough to have tickets, at the BETT Teachmeet up in the Apex Room on the evening of Friday 14th November.
The commercial side of open source is represented at BETT, with Moodle Partners Synergy on stand N2 and Webanywhere on J50. We'd be deligthed to hear of other open source firms exhibiting at BETT.
We'd also be very interested in hearing members views of the BETT experience from an open source perspective, such as responses from exhibitors to 'will it run on Linux?' and 'what can this do that [insert name of brilliant open source application] can't?'.
