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Some of the good bits from BETT 2009

http://www.teachers.tv/ict

http://www.bettawards.com/Shortlist.asp

BETT 2009

Well here we are it’s January again! Oh how time flies. I love January in so many ways, the start of a New Year, new ideas, new hopes for a more organised and calm life! Anyone who knows me well, will understand how unlikely that idea is, you can but hope. And then there is BETT. I really enjoy BETT and this year was no exception. I had a great time, wandering around for a day and a half in a daze just soaking up the atmosphere. Lots of the hype and excitement is indicative of a second-hand car sales fest, but there truly are some wonderful ideas on show. From those still the in embryonic stage such as the Future Schools showcase, to the old favourites that show up time and time again with just a variation on the theme, like voting systems and IWBs.

As usual I take a group of 4^th year students with me, we generally have quite an eventful time, this year was not to disappoint. Ignoring the fact that two students missed the train on the way down and had to get a later train, I tried to relax and enjoy. Slightly later than planned, we were all milling around the show trying to see all and miss nothing, when I received an excited text message to inform me that one of the girls had indeed won a complete voting system from Quizdom, software and all! Now that’s a result. The same two students caught the return train home by the skin of their teeth!

My 1st year Educational Studies group have been looking at education and technology, past present and future. When I say past , it is a fairly resent past in terms of education, 10 years, but the shift in technology has been quite an eye opener for us. Their research has just demonstrated, yet again, the vast range of provision across the nation. In fact some groups took a boarder view, looking at the spread of technology across the globe. This is a link from one of the wikis.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7110000/newsid_7117000/7117011.stm

Kids in the African country of Nigeria are testing cheap laptops, specially designed so they can be used in poor nations. They cost less than £100.

Each group have created a wiki where they have highlighted the key points from a given perspective. There are some really thought provoking issues on their wikis. Take a look and leave your comments, I’m sure they would be glad to see their wikis are being read.

edstudies.wetpaint.com
slateandchalk.wetpaint.com
wikigeeks5.wetpaint.com
wenglish-ed.wetpaint.com
futurama-education.wetpaint.com

On a similar thread this weeks chat from ITTE is the history of educational ICT and how there is a need to preserve some of our good practices and valuable literature; a job that Becta once did so well. I enjoyed this email below the most;

“Isn’t anyone looking at the history of educational ICT as an area for academic study? We all tend to be so future-oriented that we sit far too light to some of this stuff. There is more to it than a bunch of boring old farts sitting around saying “I remember when we used to write programs on punched cards...” As Larry Cuban so dramatically illustrated, perhaps there are some lessons to be learned. I have a hard time trying to persuade undergraduates (who did KS1 SATs) that education existed before the National Curriculum, and some of it at least was pretty good.

Follow me!

It has been a quiet week so far, but the week is young. My bloggers are more confident and keen to explore what Blogger has to offer. It is amazing to see how creative the students’ blog are, I hope that this creativity will expand to their journals too! So far we have been exploring the ‘Follow this Blog’ function which is great; it allows a group of people to share their blogs which will work well in the primary classroom. I would like to ask each of my ‘followers’ to send me an idea for using Blogs in the classroom. At least this will test to see if anyone is actually reading my blog!