BETT was a tentative affair this year – a last minute decision back to the Excel in person for a flying visit (less than 24 hours away from home – a speedy round bus-plane-walk-plane-bus return trip from Cavan Ireland to London City). Becuse the Saturday of BETT is no more, both TeachMeets were on the same evening back to back. I took part in both, and saw very little of the rest of BETT – what I did see was a bit disconterting – there seemed to be a lot of booths with surveillance type stuff for sale.
It was different to other years, being in the centre of a very noisy late evening conference space. Both TeachMeets however were packed with good stuff from teachers of every level and sector and geograpichal locartion. The technical support was superb which helped both presenters and audience. The MCs – Arjana & Bart, Dawn & Drew – did the “hosts with the most” business of keeping the plates, and the random name picker, spinning. The running buffet of refreshments was more than welcome, as was the lovely supper in the Fox Connaught afterwards, hosted by the kindest most unassuming person in edtech, 2SimpleNigel. It was a long, relaxed evening full of rich conversations.
As Twitter threads are beoming the new blog posts, I just went back to read my reactions at the time, posted on the fly in the East End (and oooh to wordpress for the Unroll button, new to me, nice move!). Here’s the unrolled thread:
Thanks to organisers & hosts of two #TeachMeets at #BETT2022 @abfromz @BartVerswijvel @digitalmaverick @dawnhallybone @dannynic @IanStuart66 and to the presenters also the “providers!” of refreshments both during and after @2SimpleSoftware @ClassVR
#tmBETT22 #tmBETT2022
1/2
above = 3 of many presenters from many countries
@caroljallen [UK, t’north bit] reminding us it takes more than ears to listen to a student
@elenavercher [Catalunya] showing us the magic of genius hour
@simonmlewis [Ireland] with a Principal’s post-pandemic perspective
#TeachMeet
post script – this interesting piece of history about the ‘TeachEat’ social venue @FoxConnaught – thanks to Nigel at @2SimpleSoftware for making sure we all got fed – and when the right food got to the right tables in the end it was delicious. Staff were sound too, thank you all.
Originally tweeted by mags amond 🇮🇪🇪🇺🇺🇸 (@magsamond) on March 28, 2022.
Hopefully in other years there will be more time to wander about London with the fellowship that often goes to BETT together from Ireland. I was moving too fast at the time to realise how much I miss this part of the trip. Next time.
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