Policy Seminars

Wednesday
14:00
Catch me if you can!

Doug Brown, Deputy Director, Technology Futures Unit, Department for Education and Skills

All learners need the skills and competences required to succeed in the 21st century. Technologies that make learning more relevant to meet this challenge are widely available and many already have access to personal, mobile and interactive technologies – to play, learn, collaborate, communicate and create - yet formal use of such technologies is in its infancy. This presentation will explore the “readiness of the system” to meet this challenge.

Thursday
11:00
Keynote:Education in the Digital Age: Transformation and Social Justice

Keri Facer, Futurelab

How can we fully exploit the potential of digital technologies to transform education and create a fairer education landscape? How can we ensure that personalisation and innovation empower all young people and educational professionals and not just those who are already advantaged? Current approaches to education technology, which are focused on 'efficiency and improvement', may be increasing rather than reducing social inequalities - is the best way forward to stop tinkering at the edges and to radically reconceive education institutions, practices and goals instead?

12:45
Curriculum Design and ICT

Mick Waters, QCA

Thinking about curriculum design opens up new opportunities that can be exploited by ICT. From early years to the end of formal schooling, the curriculum is there to enable learning and ICT is there to help. Mick Waters will be joined by school representatives to offer an overview on curriculum design and demonstrate areas of good practice. Come along and enjoy the possibilities.

14:00
DfES session

Ralph Tabberer, Director General of Schools, DfES

No details available at present

What are your views on the policy directions currently being undertaken? How will attendance at any of the above sessions help your understanding of how ICT will support the teaching and learning process? Share your views with the wider community.

School improvement seminars

Friday
11:00
Becta Keynote: Nearly isn’t good enough!

Stephen Crowne, Chief Executive, Becta

Stephen will outline the challenge facing our leaders to keep raising standards and performance and to do the best for every learner. This will cover the morale and business case to increase the number of schools and colleges which make effective use of technology from the current level of 15% to at least 80% by 2011. He will outline what needs to be done and Becta’s role in making it happen.

15:15
ICT Excellence in Action Day for Leaders session

Eccles College, Salford (Becta Beacon Award winner for e-enabling organisational development )

Eccles College describe themselves as ‘early adopters' of new technology, and have designed and developed a web based system for improving the handling of self assessment reporting and action planning for teaching and support staff which has been replicated across 18 other organisations.

Do you believe that attendance at either session will clarify some of the issues surrounding the school improvement agenda? Should the BETT seminar programme devote more to this area? Post your thoughts to the rest of the BETT community.

Literacy Seminars

Saturday

10:30
Emap Education Keynote: Problems with Teaching Literacy? Inspiring Achievers and Under Achievers - A master class of ideas for all teachers

Alan Gibbons & Stephen Heppell

Two major speakers - One from the world of Literacy and the other from the world of IT, joining together to highlight how the traditional teaching can benefit from using ICT.

The Literacy Classroom
Alan Gibbon will examine the kind of educational environment that can encourage pupils to engage with all aspects of literacy. He will offer practical strategies to get pupils of all abilities to read for pleasure and to achieve self-expression through writing poetry, fiction and non-fiction.

A New Literacy
Stephen Heppell will highlight how ICT is offering new opportunities that broaden our definition of literacy. Authoring podcasts together, parking their video on YouTube, TXTing and blogging, from computers and from phones, from complex threads on MSN to Story Clusters on FlickR, and right across the world our children are rushing back to narrative with a sophisticated ability to tailor their communication to media available. This session explores some the evolution of this new literacy and through viewing their work examines where children are now, and are going, with narrative inside the classroom and beyond.

What are your expectations for this keynote address? Are you aware of the work of Alan and Stephen prior to attendance? What keynote speakers would you like to see address BETT delegates at future events. Post you comments and help develop the programme for the future.

ICT Seminars

Wednesday
12:45
BESA Keynote: Power and Responsibility - the Disruptive Role of Technologies in Learning

Angela McFarlane

No description available at this time.

Thursday
12:45
Digital Repositories in Further and Higher Education: Their Implementation and Value

Dr Neil Jacobs & Amber Thomas, JISC

The session will arm delegates with up-to-date information on how and why UK colleges and universities are implementing repositories. Repositories allow effective management of, and access to, learning and research materials by working together, using common standards and agreements, so that users have access to a distributed national electronic resource.

What ideas or practice would you hope to adapt and incorporate into your own classroom practice from attendance at either of these sessions? Post your thoughts and help shape the discussions about the future of the BETT seminar programme.