Simon Haughton's website

BETT 2019

Yesterday was my ninth visit to the annual BETT Show and I do think that I'm becoming quite efficient now in navigating the stands and picking out the new products that are: manageable and cost-effective to implement in the classroom as well as having a positive impact on the curriculum and children's education. So, in no particular order, here are some of the highlights I found:

• the Blue-Bot and Bee-Bot now have an audio playback feature that speaks the movements that are happening (saving adults like me getting a dry throat and making it better to use independently by children) - https://www.tts-group.co.uk/Hero-BeeBot.html;

• TTS have also started selling activity tins for the Bee-Bot, containing: accessories, jackets and activity cards to help enhance your use of the Bee-Bot on the many new mats that are now available like a wildlife garden, dinosaur jungle and an amusement park;

• Twinkl have launched a free AR-based coding app on the theme of Little Red Riding Hood;

• Twinkl have also started creating AR-linked books too, like https://www.twinkl.co.uk/resources/twinkl-originals;
• Learning By Questions appears to be an online, multiple-choice quiz from which you can get feedback on how children perform although personally, I'd rather pick the questions myself (e.g. from the Classroom Secrets resources) and just create a free Google Form;

• Mission Python is a book teaching you how to code via the theme of a space adventure, although look on their site, whilst it's very detailed, would need some simplification before actually presenting to children;
• BBC Bitesize has recently undergone a slight design update and archiving of old content, whilst BBC Teach continues to upload curriculum video clips and live lessons.
• Mighty Writer is a felt-based story mapping mat which looks quite fun.

• Scottie Go is an interesting collaboration between real magnetic command blocks and a programming app.
• CoderZ is an online robot programming site.
• iSandBOX is basically projection-mapping technology for a sand tray which would be phenomenal if your school has the money and space to put it.

I had a fantastic day out and even came back with quite a nice haul of merchandise that'll I'll be distributing to my Technology Team at the end of the year!

BETT 2018

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:

#kidsjudgebett Tweets

BETT 2017

Here is my list of all the companies and products that caught my attention when I visited this year's BETT Show on the newly-named 'Purple Saturday':

• Virtual Reality appeared to be this year's buzz-concept with Google, Discovery Education and Class VR all offering solutions to help integrate them into purposeful classroom contexts, although personally I am yet to be convinced how the cost and amount of equipment needed (remembering that 1-1 devices is a requirement) can not be significant barriers when Google Streeview offers a similar service with much less hassle for free considering the frequency with which most teachers would actually go on virtual field trips anyway in lessons.

How can schools use virtual reality on a budget? @Nathanashman on smart phones, 360 degree cameras and VR headsets #Bett2017 pic.twitter.com/m7K4Lq5Bs5

— TES (@tes) January 28, 2017

• Mini programmable 'robots' also seemed to be quite popular, with Phiro, SwapBots and Kubo Robot being three in particular that caught my eye as being quite interesting, although I await to see which items from these often small, start-up companies actually succeed in bringing in an effective, alternative method for doing basic programming when the Bee-Bot and Pro-Bot work so well in my school for covering these skills already.
• Beacon Computing Curriculum Toolkit is a new scheme of work launching at the end of March - let's hope it actually contains resources for delivering actual lessons, not just unit overviews.
• Data Harvest now have an iPad app for connecting their Vu+ Data Loggers with via Bluetooth, which could be worth investigating as a way of better integrating ICT into science investigations.
• Showbie launched the tools to be able to schedule assignments to be: locked, read-only and editable which will be very helpful.

• little Bits continues to grow and improve every time I see it in action - it's a fantastic product for bridging that awkward gap between what is 'programming' and what is 'electronics' and I certainly need to get some for myself. There are some lesson plans here.

• EasyRead Time Teacher looks like a great product for helping children learn how to tell the time.
• #KidgsJudgeBett ran again this year which I always this is a brilliant idea for helping children engage with stands and for encouraging companies to make interesting stands:

​ Best of Bett kids

#kidsjudgebett Tweets

A few things that recently got launched that I was hoping to see at BETT didn't actually appear, so here they are in case anybody's interested:

• Comic Draw - http://us8.campaign-archive1.com/?u=7fd71e2c83a045c87d9fc9786&id=778284200f&e=40c5ebe001
• DK Find Out books - http://www.dkfindout.com/uk/
• DayDream Education have new versions of the their excellent pocket posters now on sale - https://www.daydreameducation.co.uk/products/pocket-posters
• Lego Boost http://www.brothers-brick.com/2017/01/06/exclusive-hands-lego-boost-robotics-prototype-ces-las-vegas-news-video/ and http://www.brothers-brick.com/2017/01/04/lego-boost-unveiled-need-know-bring-creations-life-news/

BETT 2016

Here's this year's list of new and noteworthy products that I discovered at Bett 2016 today:

• Lego Education have launched WeDo 2 alongside an iOS app for programming models (albeit a whopping 1.61 GB in size be warned). I'm always a big fan of Lego resources like this, although I do find the high cost for the number of sets required for a class for what would be just a handful of lessons at most a big factor in deciding if it's worthwhile.

• TTS have released both a new tactile reader for programming the Blue Bot using a visual language (although I would personally just use their Pro-Bot with a screen already on the device for just a fraction more) and an Inspire app whose link I can't yet find on the App Store but which promises to contain over 400 free lesson openers written by subject advisers.

• Discovery Education Coding now have free code versions of their online HTML and Python programming tools available - I just hope that a save function will become available on iPads in the future.

• The battle between Codebug and the suspiciously similar BBC Micro:Bit has now got a bit more intense - the Micro:Bit (which has lots of sensors but requires an ugly AA battery pack to work and whose longevity after the so-called 'Year of Code' is over is anyone's guess) had lots of cool demonstrations of it's capabilities on show; meanwhile the Codebug (which has no sensors but has a small cell battery just stuck on its back) has now launched lots of great accessories to buy online and has a full-page advert in this month's Teach Primary magazine promoting it's suitability for primary classrooms. I was also inspired by this tweet and this tweet with inspiring ideas for using the Codebug. I expect that the BBC is going to do a big media 'push' on the Micro:Bit soon when it eventually starts being handed out to Y7 pupils, although the Codebug is already in use in primary classrooms like this one and has got workshops happening in local libraries with it over half-term. I genuinely can't predict which product will come out on top...

   

• Doodle Maths - a product which my school is now using successfully to boost up skills with target children during morning registration (and at home too) has just launched a new times tables app which seems to have potential.
• Both Kahoot! and Squizr look like new alternatives to other online game-making tools which you might want to investigate.
• Daydream Education have a new app to support their KS2 maths posters which could be helpful
• Smart have a new tech-based dry erase board - see their website for an explanation and decide for yourself if this is a worthwhile product or not.

• Explain Everything - the amazing content creation tool which I now think is better than Smart Notebook - has just announced a range of new features like a collaboration tool (although how this will compare with iOS 9.3's new screen sharing feature I don't know)
• Primary Quickstart: Computing could a be a helpful reference website to bookmark.

• Class discussions are coming soon to Showbie.
• Braingo could be a product worth keeping an eye on (thanks to @primarypete_ for finding it) - it appears to be a bingo game covering a vast range of topics.

Click here to view all my photos from the day.

BETT Show 2015

Here's my annual round-up of what caught my interest at this year's BETT show in London (which was opened by Nicky Morgan, Secretary of State of Education in England with this speech):

• Flipped learning can be implemented successfully in primary classrooms I have finally discovered, having listened to @chriswaterwoth's superb and inspiring presentation about how he has done it with great impact using Edmodo (which I already love) and tools like Educanon (which is a new one to me) in his Year 3 classroom - read more on http://videoformyclassroom.blogspot.co.uk.

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• Dorling Kindersley have just launched an amazing, FREE online research site - www.dkfindout.com - which contains not only information on an ever-increasing range of topics, but also clickable hot spots on pictures and quizzes for children to play. Seriously do bookmark this website - it has the potential to be HUGE in my opinion!
• Espresso Coding (which I LOVE - see my resources for it here) has now been renamed Discovery Education Coding and commands to insert sound effects into programs are currently being developed, which should make children's games even more fun to play in future.
• You can learn to program using marble runs - see everyonecanprogram.com.
• Parent pay is an interesting solution for parents to pay for school-related things online.
• TTS have launched the Blue-Bot as a companion for the traditional Bee-Bot, having a transparent shell and being programmable from a Bluetooth-enabled device.

• Harper Collins have a range of great online curriculum resources available to subscribe to, such as Snap Science (which my school uses).
• CAPITA SIMS has a new teacher app for iOS.
• Doodle Maths looks like an interesting app but I'm not sure how well it's calculation strategies align with the new primary curriculum requirements.
• Interactive Resources have a few more iOS maths games now available - http://primarygamesapps.co.uk/
• LEGO have launched a new maths resource called MoreToMaths 1-2 for KS1 - I wonder if they'll bring out something for KS2 in the future?
• The BBC have just started a new downloadable Computing podcast for KS1, which I spotted on the train journey down to BETT - http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/code.
• Here's another computing scheme of work if it's of any help - http://www.nicholawilkin.com/home.

Leftover Christmas chocolates seemed to be popular freebies on stands this year, although Pearson were giving away bacon butties and Discovery Education were giving away pens with a tablet stylus on them - both of these were VERY much appreciated!

Having visited BETT in the morning, I then went on a quick tour around the cities of London and Westminster in the glorious sunshine, including walking on the newly-opened glass floor on Tower Bridge.

Click here to view all the photos.

What were your BETT 2015 highlights?

BETT 2014 Review

Here are some of the new edtech ideas I picked up at this year's BETT show at the Excel centre in London:

• App Shed is a website that I've known about for a while and after @tomhenzley's children blogged about it earlier this week, it could be a service worth investigating to compare with the already fantastic Google Sites. Reading Teach Primary on the way home, I also learnt about this website too - http://primary-apps.com/.
• Lego Education have product out called Story Starter which has an accompanying iPad app which can be unlocked with a code given when you buy the bricks.
• The Einstein Tablet looks like cool device because it has lots of sensors in the hardware which can be used to collect data (e.g. in science lessons) - it's a shame peripherals which offer a similar function aren't available for the iPad at the moment as far as I'm aware.
• ChooseIt! Maker 3 could be an app worth investigating, having won a BETT award this year, although it does seem to offer similar functionality to Tiny Tap and 2DIY which I already use very well.
• Ladybird now has several reading book apps available (see here), although I'm always wary of the amount of in-app purchasing they offer and how much space they take up (in comparison to Oxford Owl which runs online so doesn't take up precious GB of storage or take ages to sync across multiple devices).
• Wordsmith by Pearson could be worth investigating, although personally I would never recommend relying completely on one package for any subject as I like variety.
• I found out that the Essa Academy (whose iPad deployment is outstanding in my opinion) uses this company to sync all the technology with so it could be a company to remember.
• Daydream Education create great posters to put up on displays linked to lots of curriculum topics (including ICT/computing and were giving away mini books with copies of some of them in which was a kind gesture I thought.
• Qubizm looks like a very interesting maths product which seems to be having a big impact in Northern Ireland primary schools, even if I can't really see what link to technology it has.
• For those into Raspberry Pis, this company could be worth looking into - http://www.fuze.co.uk/project-cards/

My annual BETT Saturday is always VERY busy with me wanting to get the most of my time in London having had to get up extremely early to catch the 0555 train from Manchester! In a whistle-stop afternoon, I managed to also: walk on the beach on the South Bank (for the first time ever), see where the London  Dungeon has relocated to, (just adding to the crowds near the Eye), have a quick look in the enormous Stratford Westfield, nosey in the new One Show studio and visit the brilliant, free London Docklands Museum (which I wouldn't have even known existed had it not been for Trip Advisor's recommendation).

BETT 2013

My thoughts about this year's event:

• It was great to finally watch Tim Rylands present in real life - he spoke about the importance of keeping up with children's interests to keep them engaged. I also particularly agreed with his idea of having regular 'tech breaks' - short periods of time when children either get the chance to explore/discover the capabilities of a new too or try a more 'analogue' alternative to complete a task instead. All the links he mentioned can be found here.

• Kudlain Software seem to have re-branded their I Can Animate app to Ardman Animate IT, although no new features seem to be present - http://www.kudlian.net/Kudlian_Software/Home.html
• It was great to see 2Simple Software previewing some of their forthcoming iOS apps to me which  look seriously cool - 2DIY (which uses an on-screen joystick to control the player in a game) and Mash Cams! 
• EuroTalk's Maths, age 3-5 looks like a great little app and more for older children seem to be in the pipeline - http://eurotalk.com/apps/en/age3-5/maths/
• Ordnance Survey continue to impress me and their online maps shouldn't be forgotten - http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/bett
• TTS had a fun stand and it's worth noting that their free Bee-Bot app got some new 'farm' levels added this week - http://www.tts-group.co.uk/beebotapp
• Busy Things are selling some nice apps which I'm looking forward to exploring - http://www.busythings.co.uk/apps.php
• LEGO Education offer some great tools for the classroom - http://education.lego.com/en-gb/preschool-and-school/ (Jane Fisher has also written a blog post recently about her use of LEGO in the classroom which is very interesting).
• @charliedeane spoke to me about Fiction Express and what a huge impact it is having in her classroom - it basically provides a weekly chapter of a story where readers vote to control how the following week's plot is written. http://schools.fictionexpress.co.uk/en
• Wordwall could be a product to keep an eye on - http://getwordwall.com/About/FreePersonal
• Display Note could be an interesting app to try out too (it appears to be a slightly more advanced version of Socrative) - http://displaynote.com/how-it-works
• It was nice to see TeachPrimary and IR Games exhibit at the show - two companies that offer really high-quality educational products that are available on iOS.

Lastly, I much preferred the new ExCel venue over Olympia - yes it was easier to get lost with everything being on the same level but the facilities available (especially eating places) were a lot better.

I also enjoyed a ride on the new Thames cable car on way back to catch the DLR too!

BETT 2012

I had what I could quite easily describe as being a 'perfect' day on Saturday as I travelled down to London (on the extremely early 0555 train from Manchester!) to attend BETT 2012.

Like last year, it was a bit of a whirlwind as I wanted to visit lots of stands in quite a short amount of time at what is quite easily the largest ICT supplier's exhibition in the country. In addition, I also wanted to watch several talks too (both showcasing particular products and as part of TeachMeet Takeover demonstrating innovative classroom practice by teachers) - indeed at one point I even wanted to be at two ends of the main hall at once so apologies if I didn't quite manage to see the beginning/end of your presentation. 

Click here to my photos view on a mobile device.

Some of my highlights from the show included:

• TTS letting me try out their new Bee-Bot app (which I was assured will appear on the Apple App Store imminently) and showing me their new rechargeable Bee-Bots complete with charging station;
• Scholastic Education (with the help of Chris Ratcliffe and Ian Addison) introducing me to Class Pet - a new online resource kit for primary literacy and numeracy;
• getting a free copy of the great Teach Primary magazine which although it is half-full of adverts, is also half-full of some really good articles/lesson ideas written by teachers too;
• being reminded of the power of CoverItLive through the new livewriting.net website which @simcloughlin and @cherise_duxbury doing a live lesson with children from High Lawn Primary School;
• trying out a Chrome Book (basically a stripped-down laptop with nothing but the Chrome browser on it) on the Google stand ;
• taking part in a writing workshop on the Nelson Thornes stand run by Pie Corbett (author of this new Story Ideas iOS app) in which he: explained how to write stories from images, taught how to describe a setting/character in detail to help build a picture up of it/them in the reader's mind and pointed out the value in doing a full shared writing of whole story with your class to model it fully to them before they are expected to write one independently;
• meeting the creator of the Testbase software we use at school for filtering old SATs questions by topic and year to give out to the children to solve/answer on the AQA stand;
• listening to Jane Fisher talk about the impact running after-school Mathletics clubs has had on improving her children's mental calculation skills;
• getting a free pointy hand stick from the SMART stand;
• being reminded how fantastically child-friendly the educational videos on Brain Pop are;
• meeting up with many of the outstanding educators I follow on Twitter for the first time like Claire Lotriet, Matt Lovegrove and Dawn Hallybone.

I also enjoyed giving a short presentation on the 2Simple Software about the amazing impact several of the creative tools available on Purple Mash has had in my school.

Finally, I ended the day with a scrumptious dinner at a Spaghetti House restaurant before then going to watch Matilda in the West End. This was by far one of the best musicals I have ever seen, being: funny, heart-warming and wonderful - I, along with the whole audience, came out of the theatre with huge smiles on their faces. What a fantastic way to end the day! :-)

A BETT Day Out

I finally managed to visit the BETT Show in London this weekend for the first time ever and it was definitely much better (and bigger) than I'd ever imagined.

Although it was a long day - my train down left Manchester at five-to-six in the morning - it was also an exciting day where I: managed to collect a fair few bits of information about products that I now want to investigate into further, met a lot of people from Twitter who I'd never seen before and even had the chance to present on one of the stands (you can view my presentation here).

BETT is a place where everyone is always on the go and I found people regularly bumping into me to say "hello" and to thank me for all the help I'd given them over the Internet which was extremely nice of them I thought.

Highlights from the day included:

• watching Bev Evans present on the Scholastic stand about Google Maps (including the use of StreetView imagery to aid in digital storytelling and the use of the ruler tool add-on to measure distances between places);
• meeting and chatting with the fab 2Simple Software team;
• getting free popcorn from the Film Club stand;
• being given a demo of Mash2Web by @2simpleant which looks like it'll be a great complement to Purple Mash enabling people to design their own mini websites and easily embed content into them (including images from your computer/webcam into a neat looking gallery);
• joining in with the audience participation during Mr Thorne Does Phonics' (I'm sure that's his real name now!) lesson to learn about misconceptions in primary phonics and inspiring ways to teach words containing particular phonic structures (which involved playing games of Connect-3 and Family Fortunes);
• getting a free pointy stick from the Smart stand (which strangely seemed to be hidden away and only available once they'd scanned your badge and you'd asked them for it politely).

As others had pointed out to me beforehand, it was important to walk everywhere and to look at the small stands hidden away upstairs in the gallery as well as the big stands downstairs in the main hall. Gems that I found which are worth highlighting are:

• I Can Animate (animation software for PC, Mac and iPhone that @markw29 pointed out to me a few weeks back and which I was impressed with when I had a little play with on their stand);
• BrainPop which provides short, high-quality cartoons explaining hundreds of concepts in a fun and engaging way for children;
• Focus Educational Software (the makers of the great Focus on Bee-Bot software);
• Ordnance Survey (whose fab Get-a-Map site with free online OS maps I'd forgotten about and which is neatly mashed-up alongside Google Maps aerial photography on this website here as pointed out by Dom Breadmore during a TeachMeet Takerover);
• Flitsi (a website for creating free online polls without the need to sign up - pointed out by @ianinsheffield)
• Guubes (a QR-style augmented reality application which I found highly intriguing).

Overall, I thought that BETT was a fantastic day out which made me realise the huge range of great ICT products which are available out there to help improve teaching and learning and once again reminded me of the value of listening to others' real classroom experiences to fully appreciate the potential uses of different programs (through the many teachers/pupils I saw 'working' on the stands and through events like TeachMeet Takeover).

I definitely want to go back again next year!