The first visit of the day was to see Ian Grant, Managing Director of Encyclopaedia Britannica on Stand W19 to talk about their newest product, Image Quest, which was officially launched during BETT 2011. As we have previously reported on bee-it, Image Quest is an online bank of one million royalty-free images which can be used in school projects, on the VLE or interactive whiteboards, and much more besides. The number of images Image Quest holds is set to increase to two million by April 2011 and will also include rich video content by the end of the year. To read the full bee-it article about Image Quest, click here.

 

The next stop was Stand M50 to see Frogtrade and to meet Chris Silverton, the Head of E-Learning at Ninestiles School. The school has previously used a number of VLEs, including Moodle and Sharepoint, in an attempt to engage both pupils and teachers alike, before finally moving to the Frog platform two years ago. Chris was quick to praise the functionality of the Frog system, commending the ‘endless flexibility’ which means that ‘whatever is in your mind you can do with the Frog VLE’. When Chris set out to find a suitable VLE, they had a very specific plan of what they wanted to achieve and found that Frog ticked all of the boxes, being a visually engaging, easy to use platform, and the school is now developing their own Frog widgets for other schools to make use of. If you are heading to BETT, you can speak to Chris or any of the Frog team to find out more about the system.

 

After the visit to Frogtrade, we headed upstairs to the back of the National Hall where the Software Zone is located. This area is for new and innovative software products and features a host of impressive systems such as the customised ‘RoboSapien’ robot from Q4 Technologies who are based on Stand SW54. Developer Peter Kibble explained how children are used to playing with this well-known robot at home as a toy but often get frustrated with its complicated control system. To combat this and to develop an awareness of programming amongst pupils in schools, Q4 Technologies have created a system that enables pupils to code a string of actions and send them remotely to the robot to then carry out.  

 

 

Within the Software Zone is the Demo Zone, an arena at BETT where companies can give brief presentations about their products. We popped in to see David Henley, Director of Zulogic, demonstrate the animation software, Zu3D which is being used across the curriculum in both primary and secondary schools as a creative storytelling tool and to enhance projects. The attractive, simple to use system is packed full of features, including the ability to see wave formations of sound, add effects such as fading and incorporate title and credit sequences within seconds.

 

 

Meanwhile, back on the bee-it stand (Stand P39), things were off to a busy start with lots of visitors taking advantage of the chance to play with the bee-it website and of course, enter the fantastic free prize draw! Once again we had the pleasure of meeting lots of new-bees, as well as many bee-it regulars such as blogger and avid technology enthusiast, Bev Humphrey, who was busy trawling BETT for all the latest innovations!

 

Back out onto the hectic BETT floor and it was time to go across the gallery to visit Adrian Burt, Managing Director of Vivo Rewards, on Stand R56. The web-based student rewards system encourages pupils to fulfil their full potential by offering them credits which can go towards a range of benefits, such as skipping the dinner queue and having a front row seat at the school play, or be used to purchase a variety of products from numerous high street retailers, in return for reaching goals set by the teacher. Now in 250 secondary schools, and serving 250,000 pupils, Vivo is set to hit the primary market in spring 2011.

 

Next it was a mere hop, skip and a jump a few stands further down to see vision2learn for schools on Stand SW4. Business Development Manager, Andrea Wadham told us about the online Level 2 maths resources which are available from vision2learn for schools and revealed the high level of interest in their January offer which was reported on bee-it last week. To see the full article and learn more about the vision2learn for schools offer, click here.

 

Back downstairs in the National Hall on Stand J9, Chris Scarth, Director of Prime Principle, demonstrated the latest developments to the Classroom Monitor APP tracking system. New for 2011 is the parental portal on Classroom Monitor that enables parents to get a clearer understanding of their child’s attainment in class, drawing on comparisons with government expectations and class averages. This exciting development means that Classroom Monitor is currently the only system that can offer up to the minute targets for pupils, with links to supporting resources and evidence of pupils’ classwork. With this new feature, parents and teachers now have the ability to generate reports on pupils’ progress over any specified timescale.

 

 

The final visit of the day before heading back to the bee-it stand was to see Northgate Managed Services on Stand D70. Since the termination of the Building Schools for Future programme, Northgate has adapted the delivery of its solutions to include a consultancy service and modular offerings, alongside the previously provided managed services. The latest development for Northgate is My-School, a cloud-based service which provides access to individual Windows 7 desktops, complete with installed applications, single sign-on to a range of VLEs and customisable widgets to a variety of websites and services. If you’re heading to BETT 2011, stop by the Northgate stand to find out more and hear about their special offers.

 

Another busy day at BETT concluded with the Collabor8 4 Change ‘unconference’ hosted by a range of educational technology providers. Stay tuned to bee-it for the full event blog coming soon.

 

If you’re planning to visit BETT 2011 during the remaining two days of the exhibition, make sure you pop by Stand P39 to say hello to the bee-it team, give us your feedback on bee-it.co.uk and enter our free prize draw! We look forward to seeing you there!