BETT 2010

The new year once again saw the amazing and almost overwhelming BETT Show at Olympia in London. This is the annual national showcase for all things ICT and education. The event has grown from 112 stands in 1985 to well over 700 with 29,000 visitors.

After a high profile first day with Prime Minister Gordon Brown announcing the Home Access Programme, the show settled down to concentrate on its core business of showing off new products and making connections between schools, companies and organisations.

As usual, there is far too much to see, so I offer my top five things that caught my eye and made me go “Now, that’s a good idea”.

2Simple 2Create a Superstory

2Simple always have something to shout about at BETT and this year was no exception. The latest version of the ever popular 2Create a Story is an amazing blend of easy of use and high powered tools. Children can easily create interactive animated publications using a range of tools. By combining words, images, sounds and animations children can create a truly engaging multimodal text. To give you some idea of the versatility of this program, visit 2Simple’s online gallery of examples.

Zu3D Animation Software

Many schools are using 3D animation as a cross curricular tool that can both support their ICT and other subject’s objectives. ZuLogic’s program is inviting from the start. An attractive interface encourages users to get involved and within minutes you can have an animation. There are key features such as adding titles and multi-track sound with others (chroma-key) coming soon. The key winner for me with this project was the online hosting of finished films in a moderated gallery. Free 30 Trail from their website.

JIT Online tools for KS1

JIT from J2E is a suite of online educational tools specifically designed for younger learners. JIT has a colourful and friendly feel which appeals to reception and KS1. JIT encourages children to create on the web in a fun and stimulating way. I really liked the engaging animated interface that allowed users to concentrate on their work rather than the technology. JIT consists of 7 tools, Write, Paint, Turtle, Chart, Pictogram, Animate, and Mix. JIT should be ready to launch in March and will ‘plug’ into Merlin. In the meantime, go and play here.

Augmented Reality Returns

Some of you will remember BBC Jam and its AR Storymaking trial. This used Augmented Reality technology to allow children to manipulate virtual objects that could interact with each other. This technology certainly has a “wow” factor. However, no one yet seems to know what to do with it! Several companies at BETT were displaying AR experiments and were inviting feedback of how this technology might be used. SMART were looking at it for interactive 3D models for example. The DCSF have also got onto the bandwagon with Scimorph which according to the blurb is “a new 3D animated computer character has been launched to help teach secondary school science.” To be honest, I doubt that claim! However it’s a nice attempt to use this technology to engage pupils. There are teaching resources to support its use, but I did think they were clutching at straws with some of the outcomes! Also, Futurelab are looking at this technology as a way of adding information to the world we see around us using mobile devices such as the iPhone. This report (at the end) talks more about AR and Future lab, but also talks about the rise of 3D presentation technology in schools. Again, I think people are just experiementing at the moment, but with Hollywood pushing 3D and the availability of 3D TVs with out the need for glasses now available, it won’t be long before the classroom catches up!

Free Monsters!

Finally Spore, a great free resource (well it’s a demo) that I spotted on the Furturelab stand came from Electronic Arts, the games people. It’s a program that allows you to create your own monster. The application is stunning and the quality of the graphics means it’s really engaging. Children can add body parts to their basic monster, colour it and then play with it. You can get your monster to move, roar, jump up and down – all kinds of preloaded actions and emotions. Added to this you can take snapshots of your monster or even take a short video if it in action. Once it’s downloaded and installed you may need to hunt around in your Program Files directory to find the launch application. I am thinking this is a great starter to a whole host of creative writing ideas. Watch this space…!

More Google

In November I highlighted a few things that you might have missed in a basic Google search. See here for the post.

Toady, I thought I’d draw your attention to two new ways Google is experimenting with searching. Both these come from their Google Labs department which tries out new technologies for a while before launching them. In this trial period they are useable, but you have to be understanding if they’re not as slick as other applications.

The first I want to share with you is Google Squared. This is (I think) a very exciting way to search for information from multiple sources about multiple (but related) topics. For example, if you’re doing some work on the Wives of Henry VIII, you might want to know all the wives’ key dates (birth, death, marriage etc). You can search for each wife individually and find the information, copy and paste it somewhere before moving onto the next wife. Google Squared is a much cleaner way of doing this kind of search.

If I enter “wife Henry VII” into Google Squared, I get presented with the following table:

 

Cleverly, Google has built a table around it’s regular search, found common elements in the results and used these as column headings. You then refine your search by removing unwanted results (e.g. Jane Seymour the actor) and changing the column headings (e.g. adding date of marriage). Google then rebuilds the table accordingly. You can then export your results as a CSV file or put it into a Google Spreadsheet.

The second exciting Lab product I want to share with you is a new way Google approaches image searches. Many teachers and students use Google Image search a lot, but the results are based on the popularity and number of links to the images’ associated websites. Great when you want to know what something or someone looks like, but not so handy when you have a particular image or type of image in mind e.g. images of fruit against a white background to use on the IWB.

Google Image Swirl returns a results of a search (e.g. Fruit) showing you the images grouped by similarity. You then click on an image you think is similar to what you’re after and Google then shows you more images of a similar nature. You can repeat the process as often as it allows you to which is dependant on how many images it finds.

Please remember that any Google Image search may return images not detected by your internet filtering settings. Also Google Image Swirl doesn’t yet accept all search items. I believe this swirling idea grew out of Google’s other Lab idea Google Similar Images.

Free Futurelab Resouce

Futurelab has just published a new report on curriculum and teaching innovation that is intended to provide guidance for educators interested in exploring the potential of personalisation to transform curriculum design and teaching practices. It is aimed primarily at educational leaders involved in curriculum and teaching innovation including head teachers, curriculum managers, classroom teachers and local authorities. It should also be relevant to teacher training agencies and departments.

‘Curriculum and teaching innovation: transforming classroom practice and personalisation’ should be used for schools to devise aims and objectives for curriculum and teaching innovations, and to inform the decision-making process during long-term curriculum planning. The handbook is not a step-by-step guide to ‘doing’ innovation in school, nor a set of classroom resources.

To view the publication online and to request a FREE copy, please visit http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/publications-reports-articles/handbooks/Handbook1246

For futher information or if you wish to obtain multiple compies, please e-mail claire.denney@futurelab.org.uk

BETT 2009

January and the start of the New Year means that it’s time once again for BETT – the four day educational technology show held at Olympia in London. For anyone that has been will agree that is an overwhelming but dazzling spectacle of everything ICT. It is a great opportunity to see what is new on the market and to catch up with all the latest developments and trends.

Here are my three top picks from this year’s show:

Promethean: Their ActivPrimary software has been totally remodelled and revised. It is now called ActivSoftware Inspire Edition. It is a free upgrade. Users will need to register and then download the software from Promethan’s website. Apart from a new look interface, there are new tools and easier menus. The best new feature I feel is the ability to now recognise two or more pens on the board at the same time. This will allow multiple users at the board. All teachers will need to do is buy some more pens!

2Simple: Those busy people at 2Simple always have a new product to launch at BETT and this year they didn’t disappoint. 2Do It Yourself is a program that allows users to create their own interactive Flash resources – quizzes, puzzles, activities and games. It is for both pupil and teacher use and features 2Simple’s user-friendly tools and interface. Take a look at it at 2Simple’s site.

Table top interfaces: Ever since Microsoft revealed their revolutionary ‘Surface‘ technology, companies are working hard to make this the next big thing! Microsoft’s Surface is truly amazing to see and use. Not only is it so simple and intuitive to use, the applications that Microsoft are developing are useful and make superb use of this new interface. SMART have released their SMARTTable which is effectively a SMARTBoard mounted in a table. It allows multiple users at once and is a self contained unit for which users can download more content and update the table via a USB port. It’s pricey, but I can see this being a bit hit with younger children.

Finally for another overview of BETT 2009 take a look at the BBC’s report from the opening day.

Busbi Camera

To some Busby was the Post Office’s predecessor to BT’s Beattie, but here I’m talking about Busbi a new(ish) addition to the handheld video camera market.

I have to thank Louise at Swainswick for drawing my attention to this. I was raving about the Flip Camera, when she showed me this, which is less than half the price of a Flip – around £30 rather than £80. It can be purchased from Amazon as well as Argos.

From the reviews, it does seem you get what you pay for. Some say the quality is about as good as a webcam (about 320×240 for QVGA) but for a point and shoot video camera that’s easy to operate, has a good recording time and crucially will allow schools to afford several of them at once, I think it’s certainly worth looking at. Here’s a review from PC Advisor, plus there are customer reviews on the Amazon site. I would be interested to hear what people think of them. Louise is certainly pleased with hers!

Big Brother can be a good guy

No, not an article about reality TV shows that have outlived their welcome, but rather a quick thought that struck me recently. There have been several media storms in the last year or so about the collection of personal data. These storms are often triggered by the loss of some of this data on a train and we are right to be concerned about that. However, it is sometimes good to be reminded that in today’s technological age, all this data can lead to good things. Here is an article that shows how a mobile phone, a website and some quick thinking lead to a happy ending for one little girl.