From Gove to Geldof: BETT 2014’s here

The University Business and Education Technology team will soon be heading off to this year’s BETT show, intending to ‘power our learning’ (the show’s slogan) as we go along. As media partners of the 2014 event, we are delighted to be at the heart of technology as it evolves ever faster.

This will be my first visit BETT and, if the furious media relations activity prior to the event is anything to go by, it will be a busy and exciting event, packed with key speakers and innovative product launches.

There will certainly be some famous faces to entertain us during our visit, from the opening session from the Rt Hon Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, who will be opening the show, to key note speaker and infamous explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Sir Bob Geldof, co-founder of communications and data provider Groupcall. There should also be a few laughs at the evening BETT Awards when comedienne Jo Brand takes to the stage as compere.

Aside from this, the real business will take place on the show floor where major international tech companies will rub shoulders with internet start-ups and cloud computing SMEs. Highlights for me will be attending the Toshiba stand and hearing education industry expert Bob Harrison talk about the advance of video conferencing in the classroom, cloud technology and the move towards chromebooks and tablets and the proliferation of Windows devices in schools.

I will also be meeting up with the Firefly learning platform (finalists in the Company of the Year category at the 2014 Awards), who have invited a number of school users to their stand to explain more.

There are a whole host of other events, summits and conferences to get to; for an international perspective there is the Scandinavia@BETT showcase, offering best practice advice from Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

I am also keen to listen in on as much of the Technology in Higher Education summit as possible, featuring Futurelearn, a debate on MOOCs, deciding what tech to buy, what you wish you knew about BYOD and including social media into learning spaces, to name just a few topics!

If you’d like to chat while we are there, just tweet to @UB_UK for some ‘technology on the move’ interaction. Look out for full reviews of the show online at www.universitybusiness.com and edtechnology.co.uk