The fourth and final day of BETT 2011 got off to a slightly quieter start, with many visitors no doubt opting to spend a couple more hours in bed on a windy Saturday morning. The bee-it team were not quite so lucky but with so much to see at the exhibition, we made good use of the slightly more relaxed atmosphere and set off to discover as much as possible in Olympia’s sprawling halls for one final time this year.

 

Our first visit of the day was a brief stop to see Chris Ratcliffe on the Scholastic stand (Stand G40). After creating our own animation of Goldilocks and the Three Bears using Scholastic’s collaborative learning tool ‘Story Stage’ on the interactive touchscreen table, we went to see children’s laureate, Anthony Browne, who was launching ‘Read and Respond Engage’. The system is an online resource of interactive activities and tasks designed to inspire children to read, write and talk about their favourite books.

 

Back in the Grand Hall, SMART Technologies were presenting a talk on using content and resources in SMART Notebook on Stand B50. SMART Notebook enables teachers to create, deliver and manage interactive collaborative lessons, encouraging learning across the curriculum. The system comes with a comprehensive library of resources, word games, measuring tools, thousands of images and much more, all ready to be used instantly on the interactive whiteboard or individual computers. The new SMART Notebook Express web application (beta) is a lightweight, web-based version of SMART Notebook which enables teachers across the globe to create and share Notebook lessons and content across SMART Exchange, the online file-sharing system from SMART Technologies.

 

SMART Technologies present SMART Notebook

 

Next it was time to see Andrea Carr of Rising Stars on Stand B25 to hear about their soon to be launched ‘Switched On ICT’ scheme for Key Stage 2. The series, which has been developed in conjunction with Havering Authority and many well-known names such as Miles Berry, Tom Barrett, Oliver Quinlan and Terry Freedman, focuses on creativity, progression and pupil assessment by using a variety of entertaining scenarios, such as acting as a comic book writer, a stock market trader and a farmer to name but a few, to develop ICT skills across the curriculum. Switched On ICT comes with six units per year, includes a teacher’s guide, pupil task cards and a CD featuring a host of supporting tools alongside pupil assessment worksheets.

 

Rising Stars Stand (Stand B25)

 

Our next stop of the day was to see Lightspeed Systems Europe on Stand R18 to discuss the exciting UK launch of safe social networking system, My Big Campus. The global web-based community sits on Lightspeed’s Total Traffic Control web-filtering solution, ensuring pupils remain completely safe through the monitored environment. As John Genter, CEO of Lightspeed Systems, commented:

 

‘Children need to be educated on the uses of today’s dynamic content and web 2.0 systems but we can’t just open up access to YouTube and Facebook etc, due to the masses of inappropriate content. Instead, we have created a way to build in these types of content using an interface you’d see in the real world, but that is safe and effective for schools.

 

We’re in a height of change in education; classes are no longer 9am to 3.30pm, they are at home and online as well as in schools, and My Big Campus facilitates creative online learning in a safe way.’

 

Next it was back downstairs to see Promethean on Stand B30 to meet Teaching and Learning Consultant, Simon Ryan. Simon’s job is to ensure Promethean systems are easy to use for teachers and don’t require mass amounts of training or lots of practice to use. He demonstrated Active Board (AB) 500, the multi-touch interactive whiteboard with pen technology that launched at BETT 2011. The AB 500 enables four pupils to use the system simultaneously, making it useful for collaborative work and competitive games. Simon commented:

 

‘The AB 500 changes the education goalposts. By having an easy to use system that is just like a teacher’s desk, we’re encouraging the development of software that is no longer intended for just one lone user but is instead created for collaborative learning.’

 

Promethean demonstrate AB 500
 

We also took a look at Promethean’s voting system, ActivExpression, which enables an entire class to answer questions posed by the teacher using the learner response device.

 

After learning about ActivExpression on the Promethean stand, we paid a visit to BrainPOP on Stand B60 to see a demonstration of the BrainPOP system being integrated with the ActivExpression devices. BrainPOP uses short animated videos based upon characters Tim and Moby to teach cross-curricular lessons and features interactive quizzes on each topic. By using the ActivExpression devices, entire classes can work together or individually to answer the questions in the BrainPOP quizzes.

 

BrainPOP’s Chris Bradford also told us about the UK launch of BrainPOP ESL (English as a second language) which currently makes them one of the only online ESL resources in the UK. Other exciting news from BrainPOP includes the planned introduction of an Android app to go alongside the new iPhone app which was featured on bee-it earlier this month. To read the full article, click here.

 

Eylan and Moby demonstrate BrainPOP with ActivExpression
 

 Our final visit of the day, and of BETT 2011, was to see NetSupport Software on Stand E100. The NetSupport team have spent BETT manning their own stand as well as helping out on those of their partners, including Microsoft, HP, Wyse and others. As Matt Jones, Group Product Specialist, explained:

 

‘We’ve been really busy during BETT 2011 and have seen a phenomenal level of interest in the NetSupport products. By working closely with our partners, we can continue to offer great value NetSupport solutions to school, combined with services and products of other well-known companies.’

 

Throughout the last year, the whole NetSupport range has been redeveloped to increase performance across the board and the team are currently working on an exciting development, information of which is set to be released very soon. Stay tuned to bee-it for more details in the near future.

 

 

And with that, BETT 2011 comes to a close for yet another year. The exhibition has been a busy mix of ideas and innovations and hopefully the bee-it daily blogs have helped you to stay in the loop with all the latest from the show, whether you were able to make it to Olympia yourself or not. The whole bee-it team have thoroughly enjoyed welcoming lots of new people into the bee-it community over the past four days, as well as getting to know those of you who are already using bee-it and hearing your feedback.

 

We look forward to doing it all over again in 2012!