BETT Review
ABBYY’s Recognition Server meanwhile, delivers high quality OCR on printed texts and has a broad variety of output options; and an open API for easy integration with other programs. Library staff at the University of Southampton, are now freed from the tedious work of manual OCR and millions of pages of documents from its collection are available online in digital formats to its students and to the wider world.
ABBYY FlexiCapture is a highly intelligent software programme which automates the process of pulling specific information from a wide range of documents including forms, invoices, surveys, shipping documents, contracts and even Children’s Christmas cards. It is an ideal solution for many projects because it allows users to build templates for reading key data in so many types of documents. An important feature of the software is that it enables the software to read handwritten characters when filled into key fields in a document. ABBYY’s Colin Miller said of BETT: “It’s good to meet everyone; we consider it a worthwhile show. The international presence here is amazing.”
Make a note of this
Livescribe smart pens – now available to educators in the UK - are an affordable and flexible learning tool, which makes them ideal for all grade levels and subjects in a digital learning era. Beyond easing the traditional student pain point of note taking, educators use smart pens to revolutionise classroom learning by creating interactive digital copies of their notes and audio pen casts to recap daily lessons, homework assignments and classroom discussions, so students can replay the information as many times as they need in order to understand the material. Pencasts can be posted on Learning Management Systems as a Pencast PDF or can be embedded directly into a class blog or website.
Livecribe also launched its new Livecribe Sound Stickers at BETT, which are small stickers for recording and playing back audio notes. Sound stickers can be used to make interactive flash cards, word walls, study guides and talking books. They can also be used to create annotated art projects and oral reports. Also being shown on the Livescribe stand was MyScript for Livescribe – a companion application for turning handwritten notes taken with an Echo smartpen into editable digital text. Resulting information can be sent to Microsoft Word or any word processor to a text file shared via email or simply saved as a picture.
Teaching one-to-one
TLC Education Group is a small Cambridgeshire- based company run by husband and wife team Simon and Manda Barnes. TLC Education Group has five learning centres within schools in East Anglia. These schools are: Samuel Ward Academy and Wymondham High School in Suffolk, Coleridge Community College and Parkside Community College in Cambridge, and the Open Academy in Norwich.
TLC Education Group recently developed an online learning platform, TLC Live! that connects children one-to-one with fully qualified UK- based teachers for national curriculum focused
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www.education-today.co.uk February 2012 Livescribe smart pen
tuition in English, maths and science. The platform is already used by Coleridge Community College, Parkside Community College and Suffolk County Council. The council uses it to provide education for looked after children who sometimes struggle to attain the levels of additional tuition required to support them in their education.
Seeing the huge disconnect between parental engagement of primary and high school students, Imagine, from Pearson, provides parents with access and insight into current learning activities, student academic data and relevant resources through its cloud based on- demand software. Using the virtual learning platform capability, students are able to access online resources from home, allowing them to interact with digital content and engaging them in a way that is more natural for many school- aged children. It also means that parents can see what their children are learning at school first- hand.
Imagine provides teachers with integration of student information, displaying student academic data alongside curriculum information and content.
The speed and ease of access to this student data enables teachers to personalise learning through the use of a combined learning platform and Managed Information System.
Learning platforms
Also at BETT, Dell launched its Next Generation Learning Platform, which integrates core education applications and the resources needed to address specific learning styles, collaboration and data-driven teaching in an intuitive and engaging interface. Interfaces are tailored specifically for individual educators, students and parents. The format is instantly recognisable to young people who engage with social media every day, so it should be successful in making the link to academia, inspiring ownership of the learning process and thereby improving outcomes.
Dell Education Data Management integrates student performance data with predictive analytics to make it easy for educators to monitor student progress and intervene as necessary to improve student outcomes. The data can be leveraged on its own and as part of Dell’s Next Generation Learning Platform. Mark Horan, Dell global education vice president said: “Our mission is to equip teachers, administrators and parents with the resources they need to ensure all students reach their full potential. Our Next Generation Learning Platform and our cloud and services capabilities are part of our continuing investment in and commitment to developing the solutions our education customers tell us they need to improve learning outcomes.”
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