Some interesting comments here in the blog about teachmeet takeover. Firstly can I say I am here from the Vendor perspective however these opinions are my own. I found the takeovers fantastic. After coming to BETT for years now as a teacher, then head of department and now as an LA Learning and Teaching consultant (working for a private company….confusing I know…but anyway I suppose I have a unique point of view on this), we have seen the show getting larger and larger each year. It showcases some amazing tools, software and the like but I think it may have slightly lost its audience. As teachers teaching ICT we always bang on about audience and purpose but possibly we have too many audiences at the event…is it BSF? teachers? middle leaders? SLT? I think I noticed this more as a subject teacher at BETT. I remember going back to school and thinking 'hold on it was the head of English, SEN, Maths who should have been there'

Most large scale events often lose personality and real solid and innovative practice which I see in all of the schools I visit. The UK has excellent teachers who will innovate well under the right conditions (dont get me started on what these are but league tables in England don't help). Most events now seem to be large scale networking events and often missing pedagogy. Which is where teachmeet takeover comes in. To watch an innovative practitioner discuss next practice and show tools and offer advice is like gold dust. It can only be a benefit to all who watch it.

The coverage of teachmeet on Twitter was excellent and I have only heard postive things myself, although I am sure some presenters had a varied experience. For example depending on stand location, seating and stand use would depend on how many people could watch or interact.

The downside – Often at these events hardware and software is brought in from marketing elements of the companies and may not have the required functionality of the presenter. Presenters do go to stands before hand but technical support needs to be available to ensure they run smoothly. We had an issue with the Mic setup and could not resolve this in time for example. Also the only other small point to improve these takeovers would be that the marketing needs to be more detailed if possible so the when a company is publicising their stand events they can say 'Teachmeet takeover – Dan Bowen presenting on the use of Moodle in the secondary school', for example.

So finally to sum up, I believe that the takeover event held at our stand at others were really beneficial and worthwhile. They highlighted the pedagogy and practice behind some of the tools and showcased some excellent projects. I would not hesitate to offer stand time to teachmeet at anytime but obviously now knowing how they will work we can ensure that they supported even more on stand and in marketing if appropriate.

Well done to all whom presented at the event and thanks to Tom for organising it. I look forward to seeing other comments but as far as I am concerned it was one of my highlights.

Thank you.

Some interesting comments here in the blog about teachmeet takeover. Firstly can I say I am here from the Vendor perspective however these opinions are my own. I found the takeovers fantastic. After coming to BETT for years now as a teacher, then head of department and now as an LA Learning and Teaching consultant (working for a private company….confusing I know…but anyway I suppose I have a unique point of view on this), we have seen the show getting larger and larger each year. It showcases some amazing tools, software and the like but I think it may have slightly lost its audience. As teachers teaching ICT we always bang on about audience and purpose but possibly we have too many audiences at the event…is it BSF? teachers? middle leaders? SLT? I think I noticed this more as a subject teacher at BETT. I remember going back to school and thinking 'hold on it was the head of English, SEN, Maths who should have been there'

Most large scale events often lose personality and real solid and innovative practice which I see in all of the schools I visit. The UK has excellent teachers who will innovate well under the right conditions (dont get me started on what these are but league tables in England don't help). Most events now seem to be large scale networking events and often missing pedagogy. Which is where teachmeet takeover comes in. To watch an innovative practitioner discuss next practice and show tools and offer advice is like gold dust. It can only be a benefit to all who watch it.

The coverage of teachmeet on Twitter was excellent and I have only heard postive things myself, although I am sure some presenters had a varied experience. For example depending on stand location, seating and stand use would depend on how many people could watch or interact.

The downside – Often at these events hardware and software is brought in from marketing elements of the companies and may not have the required functionality of the presenter. Presenters do go to stands before hand but technical support needs to be available to ensure they run smoothly. We had an issue with the Mic setup and could not resolve this in time for example. Also the only other small point to improve these takeovers would be that the marketing needs to be more detailed if possible so the when a company is publicising their stand events they can say 'Teachmeet takeover – Dan Bowen presenting on the use of Moodle in the secondary school', for example.

So finally to sum up, I believe that the takeover event held at our stand at others were really beneficial and worthwhile. They highlighted the pedagogy and practice behind some of the tools and showcased some excellent projects. I would not hesitate to offer stand time to teachmeet at anytime but obviously now knowing how they will work we can ensure that they supported even more on stand and in marketing if appropriate.

Well done to all whom presented at the event and thanks to Tom for organising it. I look forward to seeing other comments but as far as I am concerned it was one of my highlights.

Thank you.

I only attended the first half of the teachmeet, but took away more ideas from that than from the whole of the rest of the show. I shall certainly be noting the Takeover programme for 2011, and reviewing travel so I can stay for the whole TM.