Jan 24 | 2020
At Bett Asia we believe in bringing together people, ideas, technologies and practices.
When the best of the best in any chosen field come together, sparks fly, ideas blossom, and amazing things get done. That’s what we offer at every show. We pride ourselves on being a touch point for teachers to engage with the wider regional and global education system.
First timers are exposed to a world of education they may not have experienced before.
Ria Bailey attended Bett Asia for the first time in 2019, taking back plenty of actionable insights with her to Hope International School, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and was happy to share her experience with us.
Over to Ria.
I first heard about Bett when my school asked me if I wanted to attend the conference in Kuala Lumpur in 2019. This was the first time I had visited the show.
When I was first approached by my school about going, I went on the Bett Asia website to try and find out more. I was pretty excited by the scale of it all! I had never been to anything like it before, so was looking forward to hearing from people and experts from different fields, as well as explore new technology.
I wanted to be exposed to new ideas at Bett Asia too.
I attended quite a few talks, visited several booths, and took away lots of brochures to bring back to school. Of course, I took lots of photos too!
Lots of topics were covered by the guest talks I attended, covering:
• The culture of change in education
• Women in leadership
• Green schools
• Coding as literacy
• Several talks on STEAM, EdTech, and SEND
I particularly enjoyed the STEAM talk given by Brian Cooklin, Principal at Nord Anglia International School, Hong Kong.
I found the talk given by the Malaysian Ministry Of Education really interesting and hopeful too - even though I work in an international school and not a government school, it was great to hear about the desire to increase access to STEM across Malaysian schools, and the want/need to make learning more authentic and meaningful so children can solve real world problems.
Through the talks and seminars I attended at Bett Asia, I took away some useful information to share with my colleagues:
• Technology should not be used for technology’s sake
• The importance of coding – it’s the language of the 21st century: “Not learning how to programme is like not learning to read.”
• STEAM should inspire change, be inclusive, be applicable and able to solve real world problems, encourage ambition – and it doesn’t have to be expensive either!
• Changed planning in my year group (Year 2) to accommodate some of my new STEAM learnings
• Shared the names of companies from some of the booths I visited with the SLC, Literacy Coordinator and Learning Innovation Coordinator at HELP if I thought they would be useful to our school
One big change my year group did after this was to make STEAM projects more open ended - I realised that we were giving children the problem to solve, but then also giving them too much direction re. how to solve it, instead of letting them come up with the solution themselves.
For example, we had set them the challenge to make a boat to get from one side of the swimming pool to the other and told them what materials they could use. We could have made this a lot more open ended.
At the time of BETT Asia, we were starting an IPC unit called 'Inventions that Changed the World', so we set children the challenge to come up with an invention that would change our classroom. This was a lot more open ended and gave children more scope to demonstrate their creativity and their design skills.
This was my first experience of Bett, so I did find it a bit overwhelming at first, but I did thoroughly enjoy my experience and learnt a lot.
Now that I know what to expect a Bett Asia, I’m in a better position to prepare myself for 2020’s event and will be able to bring back more actionable insights to my institute.
Bett Asia is the region’s leading education technology conference and expo, gathering senior education leaders, educators and innovators to share intelligence on how to improve learning in the 21st century.
For our upcoming 2020 edition, we will continue to build on our position as the leading EdTech thought-leadership conference in Asia, with an expected 2,600+ attendees, 100+ world class speakers, leading companies and inspirational start-ups.
Visit our website for more information.
First timers are exposed to a world of education they may not have experienced before.
Ria Bailey attended Bett Asia for the first time in 2019, taking back plenty of actionable insights with her to Hope International School, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and was happy to share her experience with us.
Over to Ria.
What teachers get out of Bett with Ria Bailey
The build up
I first heard about Bett when my school asked me if I wanted to attend the conference in Kuala Lumpur in 2019. This was the first time I had visited the show.
When I was first approached by my school about going, I went on the Bett Asia website to try and find out more. I was pretty excited by the scale of it all! I had never been to anything like it before, so was looking forward to hearing from people and experts from different fields, as well as explore new technology.
I wanted to be exposed to new ideas at Bett Asia too.
The event
I attended quite a few talks, visited several booths, and took away lots of brochures to bring back to school. Of course, I took lots of photos too!
Lots of topics were covered by the guest talks I attended, covering:
• The culture of change in education
• Women in leadership
• Green schools
• Coding as literacy
• Several talks on STEAM, EdTech, and SEND
I particularly enjoyed the STEAM talk given by Brian Cooklin, Principal at Nord Anglia International School, Hong Kong.
I found the talk given by the Malaysian Ministry Of Education really interesting and hopeful too - even though I work in an international school and not a government school, it was great to hear about the desire to increase access to STEM across Malaysian schools, and the want/need to make learning more authentic and meaningful so children can solve real world problems.
The outcome
Through the talks and seminars I attended at Bett Asia, I took away some useful information to share with my colleagues:
• Technology should not be used for technology’s sake
• The importance of coding – it’s the language of the 21st century: “Not learning how to programme is like not learning to read.”
• STEAM should inspire change, be inclusive, be applicable and able to solve real world problems, encourage ambition – and it doesn’t have to be expensive either!
• Changed planning in my year group (Year 2) to accommodate some of my new STEAM learnings
• Shared the names of companies from some of the booths I visited with the SLC, Literacy Coordinator and Learning Innovation Coordinator at HELP if I thought they would be useful to our school
One big change my year group did after this was to make STEAM projects more open ended - I realised that we were giving children the problem to solve, but then also giving them too much direction re. how to solve it, instead of letting them come up with the solution themselves.
For example, we had set them the challenge to make a boat to get from one side of the swimming pool to the other and told them what materials they could use. We could have made this a lot more open ended.
At the time of BETT Asia, we were starting an IPC unit called 'Inventions that Changed the World', so we set children the challenge to come up with an invention that would change our classroom. This was a lot more open ended and gave children more scope to demonstrate their creativity and their design skills.
This was my first experience of Bett, so I did find it a bit overwhelming at first, but I did thoroughly enjoy my experience and learnt a lot.
Now that I know what to expect a Bett Asia, I’m in a better position to prepare myself for 2020’s event and will be able to bring back more actionable insights to my institute.
More on Bett Asia
Bett Asia is the region’s leading education technology conference and expo, gathering senior education leaders, educators and innovators to share intelligence on how to improve learning in the 21st century.
For our upcoming 2020 edition, we will continue to build on our position as the leading EdTech thought-leadership conference in Asia, with an expected 2,600+ attendees, 100+ world class speakers, leading companies and inspirational start-ups.
Visit our website for more information.
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