Much like the Edinburgh festival many of the more interesting activities at the BETT show happen on the fringe. Although with Learning Without Frontiers, TEDX, Collabor8 4 Change and the TeachMeet being sold out it seems what was the fringe a few years ago is now challenging the mainstream for why teachers throng to London in mid January.
One of the most exciting of these developments is the TeachMeet Takeovers, where a commercial supplier gives their stand over to a classroom practitioner to present on a free tool, service or learning experience that they want to share. We really like this idea as it appeals to the BrainPOP ethos that places, above all else, the learner at the heart of things. And it feels deliciously rebellious too 
We had 4 teachers present their Takeovers – Dan Roberts, Alessio Bernardelli, Ian Guest and Bill Lord. Each one of them was erudite, interesting and entertaining. We uploaded some recordings of them below. We really do recommend you take the time to watch them, you will walk away enriched with practical ideas to take into your classroom.
Dan Roberts aka @chickensaltash “35 Free Tech Tools in 6 Mins and 40 secs”
This is the Slideshare which contains all the links:
Chicken pecha kucha 20×20 free tech tools
Bill Lord, aka @Joga5, talking about his Year 1 “Giraffeclass” in which he employed Twitter as a tool for literacy:
Ian Guest aka @ianinsheffield gives a TeachMeet Takeover entitled “Poll Dancing – Using online tools for formative assessment, eliciting opinion & stimulating discussion”. He recommends some really excellent free Poll tools and best practice on how to use them in the classroom.
