BETT Show 2013

Made my way to the BETT show and first time at Excel center for me anyway, even bumped into a couple of people I knew there, had a catch-up, always good. A great deal to see in a day, and I was impressed by the turn out of resources particularly for robotics and science, very impressive, very encouraging. For my own part working as I do with the Moodle, it was a little disappointing to see only one stand promoting the vle, though there were other vle systems on offer, so competition is good right.

So how was the rest of the show, well there did seem to be a heavy emphasis on applications for Interactive White Board systems, so if that was you interest, then you would have been spoilt for choice. For my own part I am really interested in for want of a better term, eLearning, and to be frank, I do retain the distinction that IWB’s are more in the arena of ILT, though some I know would disagree. Where eLearning was concerned though there was plenty of interest to see, including live demonstrations and I came away with a bag full of pamphlets that I am still trawling through. Another one of the big offerings at the BETT was the presence of Cloud based solutions, and there seemed to be applications across a whole range of possibilities from backing storage to real time software solutions, a very promising set of market options here.

Given that I do still retain a very active presence in virtual worlds and that includes Second Life and Open Simulator, it was a shame that these did not seem to be in evidence. I feel sure there is a niche still just waiting to be filled, but looking at the more recent Gartner Techno  curve I confess virtual worlds do seem to be only just emerging from the Trough of Disillusionment, so I guess frustrating though it is, it’s going to be a case of wait and see; personally I remain optimistic. After a couple of hours of walking around the various stands and getting into some good conversations, I realised that I had only covered about half the show and decided it was time for a break.

When it comes to refreshment outlets, at the Excel BETT you are spoilt for choice, however having filled my backpack with supplies, I wondered out- side on what was a bright, really mild gusty force five and sat by the river front, all very agreeable, even took a couple of pics and then back in for the rest of the show. A new project for me, one that I started to work on over the last end of term is in using augmented reality, which was not very much in evidence at all apart from one company who specialised in web design that used a feature, but this is going to be the subject of another posting soon, so do please stay in touch for that.

Bye for now and please feel free to comment on the show