BETT 2014

I've just come back from two days at BETT 2014. Been going on for 30 years and how technology has changed in that time. In early 1980's the backbreaking 380Z black computers with handles resembling ammunition boxes with 8"  floppy disk drives costing £1000+each. Now the hardware is converging towards tablets (ipads and the like) and the software is "in the cloud". "Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere", teachers, pupils, parents can all have access. I thought about "Flipped Classrooms" where the lesson (videoed) is the homework and then the teacher works with the pupils on what would have been the homework, but in school.

Espresso won the award for ICT company of the year. http://www.espresso.co.uk/
 "Espresso is a video-rich, cross-curricular service that has won multiple awards.
Suitable for Foundation to Year 6 pupils, Espresso is guaranteed to make every lesson memorable. It saves teachers time and strengthens pupils' deeper learning and understanding." "This year, schools will be preparing for the new curriculum in September 2014. At Espresso, we want to help schools succeed with the new curriculum: from planning, to finding exciting and challenging teaching resources, to embedding them effectively into lessons."

"Espresso Coding is a brand new service from Espresso Education that allows schools to easily deliver the new and challenging area of computer programming, featured in the new Computing curriculum.
It's Computing made simple for Years 1-6. Free to schools until Oct 2014."

Helping you succeed with Curriculum 2014 is a major theme for a significant number of exhibitors, and Espresso' resources were convincing.

This was only one of a number of companies that impressed me with their wares.
If you have plenty of money to spend then there are many options for "control technology", but even on a tight budget there were healthy offerings from providers such as TTS. (Part of RM education won Queens award for enterprise in 2012) Here are a few of their samples.



Programming for KS1: Bee-bots (re-chargeable bee like robots <£50), Bee-bot app (one free, one 69p), Constructa-bot  also <£50 like a bee-bot but witth a pen holder and truck like potential)
Programming for KS2: Pro-bot (programmable keypad on car with hole for pen in centre, <£90)

A rugged outdoor, waterproof green 6 wheeled "Wonder Bug" <£100 with remote controller, looked fun.

I'll write about others over the next few weeks, trying to put together an APPS and software list for both Maths and Computing.