POPtalk

On Wednesday 8th July 2009 we attended our first local Oxfordshire LA event – the Harnessing Technology across the Curriculum conference at the impressive Frank Williams F1 conference center.

And...they're...off!

“This free event will showcase the exciting ways that teachers and pupils are using technology to enhance learning and teaching across the curriculum in Oxfordshire primary, secondary and special schools.

The programme includes seminar sessions presented by teachers using the Oxfordshire Learning Platform and other technologies in schools, and exhibition stands from major educational ICT suppliers.

Attendees also are able to visit Frank Williams’ famous museum of over 40 Formula 1 racing cars at the Centre. “

Smaller events like these couldn’t be further from the giant BETT type shows. We think it’s important to try to do both.

At BETT you get lots and lots of visitors. It’s hard to catch your breath if you’re running a stand. It’s rare a stand attendee doesn’t go home without strained vocal cords and blisters. Teachers tend to hunt in packs at the big trade shows so often you’ll be demoing to 3 or 4 people, sometimes even a crowd, and be up against the noise all around you.

At local events like this you get much more opportunity to do one on one time with teachers. As there are only a handful of suppliers to go round they can take their time.

Oddly enough we found that teachers who came to see us and fell a little in love with BrainPOP UK didn’t tend to sign up for free trial on the spot like they do at larger trade shows. But we’re fairly confident they will when they next sit down at a PC.

Potentially this was simply because it was nearly the summer break. We also think a local show is simply less focused on selling (at BETT it’s expected behaviour to be scanned for evaluations or entered into competitions etc) so there’s no pressure to sign up to anything. As the conversations are more in depth there’s much less chance of forgetting.

Events of this type are less explicitly commercial (there were a number of local schools displaying their ICT adventures in amongst the suppliers). The stands weren’t shouty and glossy. All the stands were very similar – they simply implied “Pop over and have a chat”.

Which suited us just fine. The feedback we got was fantastic and I dare say we’ll soon be welcoming some Oxfordshire schools to the BrainPOP UK family in September. Some highlights:

• Meeting Nick Speller and James Bird from the Oxfordshire ICT Advisory team – thanks for looking after us and making us feel so welcome, guys!
• The whole BrainPOP UK team got a chance to see Dawn Hallybone do her thing in her “Game based learning in the Classroom” seminar, using Nintendo DS consoles to deliver real demonstrable value in the classroom. Talk about hyper engaging teaching tools. If you ever get a chance to see her present on this topic we highly recommend it.
• The Sonning Common School radio seminar (their kids went home with lots of Tim and Moby stickers – are there any kids who don’t want stickers?) and have uploaded a blog post here with some great photos: SCPS Radio @ the ICT Conference .
• Katie from 2Simple was there and she’s always a pleasure to hang out with.
• The dozens of pupils who ravaged our stand for free goodies and a chance to watch Tim and Moby movies. My personal highlight was when a teacher gathered her pupils and asked them to venture forth and visit every stand and report back to her what they’d seen and what they’d like to use in school. Immediately, and almost in synchronisation, they shouted “BRAINPOP!“. Brilliant.
• The F1 Museum – not my cup of tea but others on the team couldn’t believe their luck. There was even talk of a Tim and Moby F1 movie!

Louise gets all a-flutter at being so close to a real F1 car

PS: You can see an overview of the event by checking out the Twitter search on the conference hash tag “#oxict09“. If you are not sure what a hash tag is it’s worth reading this article on hash tags.

Nick Speller told me over a coffee that the Oxfordshire ICT team are trying to popularise #oxteach to create a living, breathing way of highlighting all interesting conversations around what’s happening with ICT in Oxfordshire. Even though it’s still very early days with this we say bravo! As we are based on Oxford we will also use this tag where we can.

Related Posts:

• Collabor8 4 Change – a new ‘unconference’ at BETT 2011
• BrainPOP connects at the Global Education Conference
• Meeting People isn’t easy – But making the effort is always worth it.
• A day in Shropshire
• Through the Looking Bowl – Teachmeet Fishbowling with BrainPOP UK