Welcome to London! I
n our first feature this month, we look back at two of the education sector’s most
important shows, Bett and The Education Show, and pick out a selection of highlights from both.
January saw the global education community come together at London’s ExCeL centre, to discuss the future of education. Over 800 leading companies, 100 edtech startups and 34,000 visitors attended the annual Bett Show, including 12,000 school leaders. For the first time, The Education Show took place at the ExCeL alongside its sister show Bett. The Education Show attracted over 7,000 visitors, including 3,000 school leaders. Both shows offered an opportunity for leaders in the education sector to exchange best practice and share their inspiration.
Bett: exhibitors and speakers continue to transform education UK Secretary of State for Education Damian Hinds opened the Bett Show, recognising the importance of the trade show as a forum for discovering the wide showcase of technology on offer in the edtech market. “There’s no better
example of an efficient market working well than here in the ExCeL,” he said, pointing to how Bett is “bringing together buyers, sellers, the interested and the curious to test and see what is on offer.” The Education Secretary took the opportunity to announce a £10 million innovation fund to help the education system as a whole stay informed and make the best use of edtech available.
A number of other big players had
announcements to share with the market at the event. The British Education Suppliers Association (BESA) launched LendED, a new platform to help schools to make more informed decisions about edtech investments. The platform allows educators to browse a multitude of innovative technologies on the market and try them out for free before making a purchase. LendED offers schools the chance to trial products, to be sure they can make a real difference.
Edtech startup pi-top unveiled its new modular
computer called the pi-top [4], allowing learners to create, control and programme everything
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www.education-today.co.uk
from flying drones to lighting systems. The computer focuses on maker projects with real- world applications, such as developing and programming a weather balloon to record environmental changes, for example.
Education management and VLE specialist
Canvas launched a new piece of online CPD software called Practice, helping to train and support high quality teachers through web-based video. Their new solution effectively gives teachers the opportunity to ‘learn by doing’ and receive meaningful and actionable peer and expert feedback. Dr. Philippa Hardman, Director of Learning at Cohort Learning, underlined the value of experiential pedagogies for teacher development: “learning that sticks with you comes through experience and a key part of this is practice – working in structured and supported cycles of doing, reflecting, then doing again.”
Microsoft introduced a series of new
Windows 10 devices for the classroom. These include three new devices from Lenovo, three
Continued on page 30 February 2019
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