Here is a quick summary of who I met and what I discovered at this year's BETT23 Conference . 
I was invited to contribute and speak on the topic of digital transformation. Developing Digital: Insights on a way forward. There will be a publication which is still to appear. Thanks to Intel , The Education Foundation, Edtech UK and Ty Goddard for the opportunity to share my thoughts with a lively audience and share a platform with colleagues from across the UK and the Polish Education Minister. We had a full house standing room only and lots of good feedback.

Lessons here:  Wales in fast lane on digital transformation across life long learning. England pockets of good practice. Poland " we mandated #OER three years ago" and other throw away lines looks on a much faster track than any of the UK nations.

I targeted having 30 minute meetings with 10 minutes in between to get around conference.  It made for a busy two days but best way to make most of BETT. In this way I managed to meet everyone on my hit list and squeeze in a few sessions.  Mainly I supported sessions from Jisc and from the Association of Learning Technology. Maybe confirmation bias, but we now have a super strong platform at City of Glasgow College and our focus on digital transformation aligns well with movement across the UK.  So superb reaffirmation.

Key takeaways -

My thinking still sound around how we can explore AR and VR with learners across the College in a cost effective way. 
We need to make more of the accessibility tools we already have available for staff and students.
Canvas was absolutely correct choice for institutional VLE and lines us up well for pushing content out and offering digital badges. 
Teachermatic is the start of wave of AI tools for teachers and learners - and good we have road tested it prelaunch.

Moving around I didn't see anything fantastically new. Perhaps that many of larger stands had e-sports racing car set ups. I do think e-sports is part of education but they did look like simple props to get educators on to stands. I'd have loved a shot but no time between meetings at key moments everyone threw in a reference to Artificial Intelligence including the English Education Minister. There was definitely a sense that regime change may be in the air in Whitehall.

Thursday seemed busier in terms of footfall - I managed to meet Google and an innovative assessment feedback company EasyCorrect | Engage your students with better and faster feedback  before conference opened.

In speakers lounge was great to see BETT regulars Prof Stephen Heppell and other colleagues. Including former BECTA crew - I think England and UK still needs a team doing some deep testing and offering schools advice on EdTech .  Thank goodness Colleges have Jisc.

Teachmeet had moved from Friday slot - which I always moaned about to more sensible Thursday evening slot - but I had a previous engagement with Click-View . I've posted link below to all sessions looked great.

I picked up too some great leads and partners for potential College business - which is core reason for feet on ground. I'll be following up on these leads in coming weeks.

It was good too to catch up with some of the College Canvas users in rest of UK in College landscape. I'll bring some of these contacts to speak to our College staff.

Overall a good #bett and see it is moving back to cold January next year. The weather this year was cold dark and wet at end of March.  I think I posted same message 20 years ago - would be good to see more Scottish education tech folk and policy folk more visibly on ground.

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