Chrome advertising is all over London

I was in London for a few days last week, mostly for BETT and also a look around the Olympics site. ( see previous posts )

Google are spending on conventional ads. Don't believe that street posters will vanish anytime soon.

No sign of YouTube or Google Maps at BETT this year. They were a sponsor last time for Heppell.net

So whatever it is they do is now consumer electronics, for a very general audience.

Olympic Site London photos Victoria Park to Marshes

The "legacy after the games" could start now. There is a walk along the canal by Victoria Park. Tree cutting at the moment but you join a path heading north. This area has a lot of walks already.

You can see some of the new buildings. The car park is nothing special. Perhaps it will be knocked down once the events are over and the   park is announced.

Canals are part of industrial heritage. Some of the old buildings are interesting but may be found more cared for in other parts of the UK. I am still interested in video of walk conversations but this can be edited from various locations. 

BETT photos : elearning transformation where or when?

Photos now on Flickr

I am still wondering about why BETT is not better reported. Is elearning getting closer? I asked Stephen Heppell this question and he claimed that it is. But his answer was more about what learners expect than actual changes in schools, universities etc. I have yet to edit a video. But I found this quote from a recent meeting in Australia, Be Very Afraid 7.

There are big questions for those who want to be part of education and for those who might be employing today’s students tomorrow. With rich information, borderless collaboration and autonomous learning available whenever and wherever an internet connection exists, and with students given the keys to unlock it, we have a seismic shift occurring in education that will reverberate in all corners of society. Listen to learners or be very afraid.

Quoted by Joanne Hopper on her blog, Shaping the Vision

So this is a message that needs to be drawn out. Few speakers are upfront with the view that most organisations will fail, and sometime soon. I think this is what he may be saying though. The examples of IBM and Microsoft as leading companies who seem to have lost their buzz may also relate to universities etc. and countries with a reputation for educational policy.

At BETT there was very little presence for UK government. Not only no BECTA ( due to close down in March ) but no Department of Education or Business. There were stands for UK Parliament and the European Parliament but no clear policy on digital literacy etc. The most relevant stand was from Singapore where there is a budget for bandwidth and a dir3ection for creative industry.

IT and media studies are both the sort of subjects not encouraged by the new league tables on core academic subjects. So although BETT convinced me there is a momentum for elearning it seems that the UK may not be the place where any tipping point will be obvious.

Two photos from BETT, more later

Back in Exeter, need a day or two to sort out the photos etc from BETT. Meanwhile here are two

Visual Learning and the space soon to be Learning Technologies. The Olympia 2 cafe was open as an overflow and there were also plenty of tables in the empty space that will be full later this month. Why not run the two shows together? It makes more sense each year.

(download)

Winter Beer Festival continues RGB chat show

Next weekend is the Winter Beer Festival for Exeter CAMRA. It is at the Football Club.

A couple of summers ago there was Beer At The Castle, when I tried out a YouTube style chat show for Rougemont Global Broadcasting. It turns out that YouTube happens very slowly. Some people turn up another day. I take ages to load up video and then it takes ages before it is noticed. But there is some continuity. Even one example of a follow up question.

 

The questions remain much the same. How to use online video for local news? I think it is a bit more clear that short clips and social media feature in this. It would still be nice to have a local channel but there is some sort of model for a mix of video and other social media.

Coming up, Animated Exeter and Analogue to Digital. I think there needs to be some study of sound engineering for the rest of us. High tech is ok but where is the equivalent of the phone camera? Casual video can be rescued by an edit but the sound is more difficult once it has gone wrong.

This Posterous post should get to Facebook and Twitter. More later in the week. More text next week.

By the way the interesting beers may not last through Friday but then you already knew that.

Isambarde Electric tour plans for this summer? anyone know.

Adobe Flash for television #BETT2011 #CES @AppleADE_UK @julietteheppell

Looking at the blogs it is clear today that Adobe got over the idea of Flash on TV. Only one press release during CES. So if it seemed that tablets were the thing, then TV could be next. Meanwhile I am still interested in flat pages and PDF. But maybe BETT will consider TV as well as whiteboards.
 
So far from Twitter I find that Juliette Heppell has an Apple TV box ( Christmas present not yet part of school policy) and it could work with a TV or a whiteboard. Apple not even at the show. So what about the rest of us? By the way, Flash not a battery problem for most television at home.

elearning at Learning Technologies and BETT : time to get "aggressive" @LT11uk @BETT2011

Continuing the aim of thinking about Olympia as an integrated site, I have been reading the hard copy version of e.learning age. A magazine in classic format is still easy enough to read. Especially when the website is an issue behind as sometimes happens. Clive Shepherd claims that print is on the way out, but the print version has more recent comment.

Laura Overton, from Towards Maturity,  writes in response to Educa Berlin where there was a Business Educa for the first time. The website claims that senior management don't want learning, they want results. Overton highlights the keynote from Adrian Sannier who said that "we have pushed technology into an existing education system and it hasn't been accepted in the way we expected." 

Kristi Jauregi blogs with a link to the video and sums up the message as advice to elearning supporters to get ready to be "aggressive". The transformation required is fundamental with teamwork a challenge to accepted academic roles.

Towards Maturity will be at Learning Technologies. They used to be part funded by BECTA, now folded. As there will be no BECTA at BETT, looking at the Towards Maturity website during next week could hekp to make sense of education.

Benchmark  Survey launch

I also think that quality ideas could be relevant. Sannier mentions "continuous improvement". Clive Shepherd has argued that Learning and Development (L&D) must move fast in case HR wakes up to technology. Surely QA could contribute to the mix? If the management want results, quality procedures could identify learning or the lack of learning.

By the way, on the BETT floorplan "HR" is not a themed tour. It means Hight Restricted.  

BETT previously on OhmyNews

OhmyNews no longer has an English language site that is updated. But the archive is maintained.

In 2009 it seemed that netbooks using Linux would have a future. Recent check on Exeter high street shows that Windows is back if it ever went away. 

But Moodle is still getting attention. Perhaps devices are now assumed and the BETT base fof open source will be around Moodle.

Previously Microsoft announced Grava , using Silverlight

Nothing much has happened though. Flash continues, with a chance on many mobile devices. Apple will not be at BETT so you have to keep thinking about outside Olympia.

OhmyNews still has a blog about citizen journalism. I may try to write something that would relate. So far I think the tech writing about BETT is incidental. I don't find many tech journalists who have looked at what will be discovered. But there is actually a comprehensive range of technology companies with UK support so comparisons are possible.