Vincent Jansen comes over to BETT every few years. Why? In this short interview he talks about what he’s seen at BETT and why it’s important.
BETT 2012 Round-up
I thought it might be interesting to collate some of the blog posts that have been written about BETT 2012, before it recedes into a distant memory. First, though, here’s a Wordle of the trends that people who responded to my BETT survey spotted. I haven’t edited the text, so there are some superfluous words, like “see”.
3D and haptics in education
Unless you’ve been walking around with a bucket over your head for the past year or three, you must have noticed that 3D is definitely the “in” thing. It’s almost de rigueur for new movies to be in 3D, and there is even at least one smartphone which has a 3D display. But what about educational applications?
Blogs by Plymouth Students
I’m always looking for new blogs to read. It’s always good to have fresh talent, with a fresh viewpoint, otherwise it can all start to become a bit self-referential and echo chamberish. So I was delighted when Pete Yeomans recently drew my my attention to a website that collates the blogs written by students on the University of Plymouth’s B.Ed course.
Education Technology and ICT article round-up
Here are a few good reads you may have missed in the last week or so, including an invitation to enter an article for a blog carnival, the deadline for which is this Sunday!
David Mitchell talks about Quadblogging and February 29
I had the pleasure of finally meeting up with David Mitchell, aka @deputymitchell. David is the brains behind Quadblogging, in which schools form groups of four in order to – well, I’ll let David explain it in his own words. In this video he talks about how the project originated, and how to get involved if you’d like to join in.
3D at Oakington Manor Primary School
By Ophelia Vanderpuye
In 2006 following a visit to China by the school’s headteacher and ICT Advanced Skills Teacher, discussions took place about the possibility of building a new ICT suite as the then suite had become too small for the growing children. In the years that followed plans and visits to new build schools to give inspiration for the design of the new building In 2009, we took a bold leap into the unknown as our discussion with our architect and ICT suppliers started to show a design that was totally different to anything we had seen in the schools we visited.
iPad Apps and Bloom’s Taxonomy
Here’s a lovely idea from Kelly Tenkely: a whole load of iPad apps classified according to Bloom’s taxonomy. I’ve had a quick look, and my conclusions are as follows:
Educating in the Third Dimension
By Graham Quince
Firstly a bit of a confession, I’m not a fan of 3D. I honestly don’t think it adds anything to the movie experience. Plot makes a movie worth watching, not 50ft robots smashing debris into the audience. I’m not in the minority either, ticket sales keep proving most people aren’t interested in sitting for 2 hours to watch a theme park attraction. I first saw modern 3D in the Terminator 2 show at Universal Studios. It blew me away. It was amazing. It was 10 minutes long and things kept jumping out from the screen. And that’s my point, 3D is a gimmick. It’s very cool, but like a rollercoaster, it works best in short doses.
Technology & Learning Editor Kevin Hogan Interviewed
I had the pleasure of meeting up with Kevin Hogan again at BETT this year. Kevin is the Editor of Technology and Learning, which is a good magazine, a great website, and a brilliant blog and a new international blog. In this short video he talks about BETT, and the differences between educational technology in the USA and the UK, as well as his plans for the magazine.
4 Reasons that the ICT Programme of Study “had” to go
The fate of the ICT Programme of Study could have been predicted accurately long before Judge Gove donned his black cap and passed the death sentence. After several years of what might be justly described as a “war of attrition”, the weight of the “evidence”, such as it is, made such an outcome unavoidable.
This article is not, to continue the analogy, meant to be the beginning of an appeal process
The 3D Landscape
Recent changes in the 3D technology landscape are transforming the way we visualise and interact with 3D data and the real world. 3D applications and technologies have reached a level of maturity that are starting to add a real value to the education sector. Inition brings over 10 years experience of integrating 3D technologies alongside expert consulting and training services. We asked them to outline a few of their examples, from 3D displays through to scanning, 3D printing, motion capture and haptic interfaces.
Lights, Camera, Inaction: A Personal View of Kodak Technology
Look, I don’t wish to overstate the case, but yesterday I really understood, on a deep level, where Albert King was coming from when he wrote that great blues line, “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all.” Because yesterday was the day that my beloved Kodak Zi8 pocket camcorder suddenly died. Admittedly, that was the only bad thing that has happened for a while, not everything like the lyric I just quoted suggests, but even so….
BETT Survey
Did you attend BETT this year?
If so, please contribute to a review I’d like to compile about what was good, trends, etc. This will be made available free of charge once it’s done. Please complete a very short online survey.
Thanks!
Digital literacy and Computer Science
Computer studies and its main component, programming, could be an exciting new addition to the curriculum. However, we must not repeat the mistakes of the 1980s, when the subject was, at least in my experience and in my opinion, insular, highly technical, and rightly perceived by some (especially girls) as “geeky”.Education Technology and ICT at BETT: Big changes for 2013
Er, excuse me. Um, I just wondered…, er could I just squeeze past…, oops, sorry…
How many times have you found yourself stuck behind a couple of people walking at such a snail-like pace that one suspects they started out the day before? That’s just one of the problems experienced at BETT at Olympia: so much squeezed into a space which has long been too small, resulting in aisles that are far too narrow for the volume of traffic and a stand numbering systems which seems to owe more to random number generation than logic. Well, hopefully this is all now a thing of the past, a soon-to-be distant memory of a venue we can reminisce about but not miss.
Bloggers and consultants: ever feel we’re being got at?
A couple of things made me smile today.
Education Technology and ICT at BETT 2012: 7 Things to do afterwards
There is always a danger that no matter how good an event is, it will turn out to have very little impact in the longer term, as you forget what you saw and more pressing concerns vie for your attention. Here are 7 suggestions for preventing that from happening.
New collaborative learning project
ISTE, the International Society for Technology in Education, is collaborating with NASA to select 25 middle and high school teachers who are creative, inspired, and share an enthusiasm for space. These teachers will work collaboratively to create learning and educational artifacts that teachers or students can use to gain a deeper understanding of the Earth's magnetosphere. Each group of teachers will choose projects to create and design. Final projects may be selected for publication on the NASA website and/or featured at the ISTE 2012 annual conference and exposition. But you’ll have to act fast because the deadline is today, 15th January 2012.
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