Sean Gilligan at BETT 2014

Michael Gove’s speech started the BETT Show 2014 at Excel in East London. BETT in it’s 30th year was busy not just with UK schools but many international delegations. The Education Minister mentioned three key words in his speech which give resonance to what we do at Webanywhere. Michael Gove in his speech mentioned open source software and flexible technology that stretches learning outcomes.

Our commitment to the world’s number one open source learning platform is most certainly a positive with the Cabinet Office and Francis Maude recognising the need for free open source software to reduce government spending on IT.

Webanywhere’s core business value is to be flexible so again the need for flexible IT is in parallel with many of our software product roadmaps. Our tag line is stretch beyond and stretching learning outcomes is one way in which we judge whether our software deployments are a success.

I was very proud to launch the latest version of our market leading software School Jotter at BETT. Two additional apps have been launched within the platform including School Merits and Jotter Learn. School Merits is an online reward system and is particularly useful in evidencing how schools utilise their pupil premium budgets. The Jotter Learn application allows teachers to create compelling learning sites within School Jotter. Learning sites can be edited and created in a similar way to your school website but with a different set of widgets designed specifically for digital online learning.

In some ways I don’t like the great expense and cost to both schools and business of the BETT Show. On the other hand it’s great for team building and a celebration of UK innovation in education with a worldwide audience. BETT 2014 was an open source, flexible and a stretching experience and long may it continue. See you at BETT next year.