Bristol CLCs and friends at the BETT show
26/01/10
The BETT Show is the biggest ICT in Education show in the world. Bristol CLCs took a coach up to Olympia on the 15th Jan.
Bryan Webster - English consultant and content writer for Teachbot English
At BETT I was impressed by anything that had Apple in it. I particularly liked the Futurelab stand and ideas. I was a bit put off by the Big Brother face recognition and diet-checking stuff. I loved the look of the radio studios (e.g. School Radio Co.). I was a bit disappointed by the publishers stands (Pearson and Macmillan) but Assessment Tool looks possibly useful. Guroo had some bright stuff on Functional Skills (although the presentation on computer was only like book pages).
Cath Lewis - ICT Learning Consultant working with Brislington Enterprise College
I was on a mission to see specific stalls - in particular for some leads on ideas for using Microsoft Surface tables - we have one at BEC. Also I went to see Fronter to organise some more training. Film Club had a fun stall with some good ideas as to how to set up a Film Club in your school - they've just held a meeting in Bristol.
James Thomas , John Thompson and Nigel Brooks - CLC Technical Coaches
The interactive LCD screens were what impressed us the most. There were a lot of different interactive touchscreen technologies - the big LCD screens looked realistic and were very hard wearing. The demonstrator from Inclusive Technology was bashing one of them with his hand. Some of the screens from Inclusive could be tilted over to form a 'touch table' along the lines of the Microsoft Surface. James picked up the best freebie - a blue Frisbee from i-nfer.
Lynn Luther and Trudy Young - CLC Business Support
Apart from all the free pens, we really enjoyed listening to a Year 6 Teacher from the BrainPop stand who demonstrated their product. Basically, it is a series of short videos on key subjects aimed at children 7-14 years and related quizzes and activities. Also dancing robots caught our eyes, but we didn't get the supplier!
Paul Williams - Senior Maths and Science Consultant
It was certainly a worthwhile day.
There were three highlights for me, one science and maths and one wow!
The science one was an online community site called www.rafi.ki . The basic premise is that your pupils can be linked with pupils in a school in a different country, in a safe, moderated environment, with the intention of discussing a particular theme. One project I saw was called 'Blood Diamonds' dealing with issues around the sourcing of diamonds. This is a free resource.
The maths resource I saw which is also a free (do you sense a theme here), comes from the Royal Albert Hall. Showtime is an interactive resource which is designed to address functional skills in English, maths and ICT. Have a look for yourself http://www.royalalberthall.com/showtime.aspx
There was one stand which really made me stop and stare. Their product knocked me back so firmly that unfortunately I didn't manage to take the name of the company! It was a large plasma screen displaying a 3D image, but without the need to wear silly glasses. The moving image really did appear to stand out from the screen, I was impressed.
Penny Russell - ICT Learning Consultant
Surprisingly I was taken by a presentation on the Microsoft stand about Windows 7. The deputy head of a school in Kent talked about how they'd used it - it has some nice features which would be good in education but its main interest for me was that it would run on old machines so you wouldn't have to upgrade your whole computer kit for it to work well. Also it works on netbooks and prolongs battery life on laptops as its uses less resources than other operating systems. Adobe Acrobat 9 looked like it would be useful for making interactive 'worksheets' for use on VLEs.
Phil Hall Elzware Conversational Systems (partners with Bristol CLCs in developing Teachbot)
Tripping up from Bristol to BETT since Elzware has started looking seriously at the education sector has always been enlightening from a functionality and density point of view. This year the show was more business like than last year. The emphasis on whiteboards and VLEs was more about 3d and business services, though it is fair to say that as an ex-corporate consultant I heard a lot of very unreasonable patronising statements being made to some young teachers in waiting and teachers in practice. From
Elzware and the Bristol CLCs perspective it was good to see that no one has got a view on what we are trying to achieve here. When I or my colleagues tried to explain to a few choice organisations there was a lot of blank faces and glazed eyes ... space to continue optimisation it would seem to be. Looking forwards to next year, we may even share a stand.
Sarah Bramley-Dymond - Manager of The I CLC
The interactive overhead projector from Om Interactive caught my attention - interactive projected images and sound projected onto the floor - when you stood on it ripples formed around your feet (amongst other things it could do!) There were a few companies with hardware for filming unobtrusively in the classroom - really useful for lesson observation, PMDS and for individual teachers who want to improve their classroom practice - an e.g Star Lesson. Also we're getting two free site licences for I Am Learning - an online games-based revision system - for each of the CLCs.
Sheila Crew - Director Bristol CLCs
To me the highlights of BETT were all about seminars - saw a great one with Angela MacFarlane, Stephen Heppell and Tim Rylands - The BESA Keynote - Breaking the Bonds of Learning; plus an interesting presentation by Tim Byles (chief Partnerships for Schools) who doesn't seem to know what CLCs are! Also trawling through the VITAL website with Debbie Forster was interesting in exploring the potential for partnership CPD sessions.
Simon Squire - ICT Learning Consultant
Lots of nice new programmable robotic kits on the market. Also an extension of the Lego kits into robotics in a form that would be very attractive for KS1+2 kids. The interactive LCDs are coming down in price - there were lots of these at BETT. It was a useful day - let's us catch up with everything in one place on one day.
N.B. None of these observations constitute an endorsement from Bristol CLCs.
Useful links
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheBETTShowOlympia - for a taste of the madness that is BETT!