Interesting stuff from the Fote Conference

I was fortunate to be able to attend the Future of Technology in Education conference (FOTE) in London on Friday.

There was some very interesting presentations about different aspects of technology in education.

Here are just a few things that were shown, or mentioned in the talks that caught my eye, and I wanted to share here.

Games Development

There was an excellent talk by Ollie Bray on games in education. Read more about it on Ollies blog.

Two useful sites were shown to get children developing their own games; these were Kodu and the Unreal Development kit.

Kodu games designer : http://fuse.microsoft.com/project/kodu.aspx

Unreal development kit http://www.udk.com/

Microsoft’s Vision of the Future

I’ve seen this video a few times now. It gets trotted out a lot at tech conferences. While interesting bits of kit – a lot of people felt the future looked rather too sterile. And also interestingly lacking in anything produced by the two major players in mobile computing – Apple and Android…

A Microsoft Surface Parody

A little unfair, but this did make me laugh. Particularly in light of the aforementioned Microsoft video getting shown earlier in the day.

One of the messages that came from the day, and one I tend to agree with, is that it’s not all about the technology. Just because it’s shiny, does not mean that it’s good for education. If the tech does enhance the teaching and learning then use it. If its just added fluff (I’m looking at you, 3D projectors) then is it really worth the expense?

Anyway, good conference.

Related posts:

1. Interesting Sites
2. Four Interesting Things
3. Teacher2Teacher Conference 2011
4. Interactive Primary Games for all Subjects
5. Australian IWB Conference Aug 2010