On Saturday 17th January 2009, pupils from Kings Road Primary School attended the world's largest educational technology show, BETT 2009. The pupils had been invited to present some of their extraordinary work on the Learning Elsewhere stand and speak to the many visitors who attend the show.

Much of what was shown on the day had been carefully considered and prepared in the weeks leading up to the event, and pupils had been given lots of portable devices, some of which had yet to enter the marketplace. Pupils were tasked with building a 'learning toolkit' to teach others about something they already knew or skills they had developed. The brief encouraged pupils to think openly and creatively in coming up with a solution.

One example of a learning toolkit is using Learning Score to help someone learn about the game of chess. Learning Score is, as the name suggests, a graphic score showing how learning can be planned into a sequence of different activities. It details how learning takes place, individual, pair, group or class work, and what resources will be used. Images, sound and audio can be embedded and links to external resources and websites is possible too. Clicking play, takes you on through the lesson, making the resources available as planned.

This group later went on to present their work to an audience with John Davitt, one of the Wise Owls offering support and advice to pupils and visitors.

Another example includes a team who have recently learnt about refereeing a football match. They produced an interactive quiz, with photos to illustrate some of the questions posed. Many of the visitors were amazed at the authoring potential that these youngsters have. One visitor commented, "If this is what they are capable of now, what could they be doing in a years time, 10 years time?"

Although the day was long and tiring, the pupils spent a lot of time talking and moving around the stand, there were plenty of opportunities to go and explore the rest of the show. One amusement was who could find the best freebie at the show, and so the pupils came flooding back with pens, stress-relievers(!), notepads, yoyos, memory sticks and the like.

Alex, Luke and Alfie found time to talk to one of the robots at the show!

All the pupils were a credit to Kings Road Primary School and their attitude, sense of responsibility and commitment, staggering. Well done everybody.

Huge thanks go to Stephen Heppell and Lys Johnson of heppell.net without whom this would never have been possible.

More photos can be found here.