Having been to BETT several times now and in this age of constrained school budgets, I went to this year’s show with the aim of hunting for products which were both value for money and which would actually have a real impact on children’s learning over a number of lessons - i.e. which aren’t expensive one-off gimmicks.
With that being said, here is my list of stands that I visited which I spotted had interesting and potentially useful offerings:
- There seemed to be many stands selling mini programmable toys and games this year which all looked quite fun, such as: Robo Wunderkind, Logiblocks and Scottie Go!, with perhaps my favourite being Kamibot which looks like the first serious competitior to the Bee-Bot but which unfortunately doesn't seem to actually be purchasable in the UK.
- The Catchbox looked like a really cool cube-shaped throwable microphone but a quick look online suggests that it's very expensive.
- SAM Labs has several mini STEAM projects online which could be used in a club with children.
- Yellow Door has a surprisingly large collection of apps for early years which could have potential classroom use.
- Tiny Bop offers several child-friendly apps which offer interactive cross-sections and simulations of different things like animals and the solar system.
- Marco the Malta Bus reading scheme is probably the most quirky titled and branded product I've seen at BETT.
- SIMS Primary has announced a new/revised version of their management system which looks to more personalised from the needs of primary schools.
- The NSPCC has released a new app to help children learn how to stay safe.
- @ICT_MrP was on the Cohuba stand talking about ways schools can embrace social media and how schools sharing photos can have very positive outcomes which shouldn't be feared. He also talked about a very amusing twist on those annoying 'let's see how many RTs this photo can get' tweets that classes send out - get people to instead manipulate them in as many ways as possible to make them funny.
- Showbie were there promoting their excellent online classroom organisation application and kindly let me have several stylus pens to take back to school for my Technology Team children whom I'm sure will greatly appreciate them.
- Data Harvest were proudly showing off their BETT Award winner's trophy for their EasySense Vu+ Bluetooth data loggers, as well as exhibiting their Genecon V3 child-friendly handheld dynamo which is excellent value in my opinion.
- Last year, TTS were giving away mini Bee-Bot compasses but I sadly only picked up one of when in hindsight I should have taken a handful as they would be great for doing an 'unplugged' lesson on algorithms (see here for my resources which use just a picture of a Bee-Bot rather a physical one). I did learn though that they can actually be bought online here in packs of 10 and are - of course - classed as a geography resource.
- Lego Education didn't have a specific stand at this year's show but have just started promoting Lego Maker Spaces - see here for an explanation and here for some activity ideas. I have recently blogged about the potential use of Lego here.
View all my photos from the day
And finally, school kids were out judging BETT again and following their hashtag gives you a great insight of how children experienced BETT and what they thought of the different exhibitors this year:
Recent Comments