For 4 days last week the education world descended on the exCel in London for BETT2016 to see what’s new in the world of education technology, and edu | websites were there to bring you all the news.
We talked to lots of people in education technology, (and ate a lot of free snacks!) and our main insights were:
Touchscreens are everywhere
A few years ago SmartBoards were the future of classroom technology but times have moved on and SmartBoards have now given way to giant wall mounted touchscreen devices. These make great learning aids as teachers can display materials easily and even draw on them to make their points!
There are so many different companies which manufacture these but although Promethean promised to “re-invent the classroom” and pretty much sponsored the whole event, the most impressive demonstration we saw was from a company called CTouch whose giant table screen looked amazing!
Homework tracking systems will be big soon
Homework tracking software is a relatively new area with some impressive offerings. This could be a huge productivity booster for teachers, students & parents alike and has the potential to revolutionise education technology & software the way productivity apps like Dropbox & Basecamp have already revolutionised the modern office.
Show My Homework is a solid offering, and Firefly seem to have invested a lot in promoting their product, but the standout product of this type for me was Milk. The team at Milk seem to have put a lot of thought into their application (both the desktop version & the mobile app) and it shows. The interface is usable and well presented and it does all things I’d expect with none of the bloat that can easily creep into productivity apps.
School apps are still underused
The app culture has been around for a while now, but how many schools are using an app? Not enough!
A lot of schools still don’t realise how much a school app can help them or how affordable they can be.
MySchoolApp have a great product without compare in the industry – it’s simple, incredibly useful and very affordable and we think every school should be using an app like this as a complement to their website.
Overall we learned a lot at the BETT show and we’re excited about the future of education technology!
