Category Archives: software

Trip to the Lords

New technologies, Politics, software,
Sal goes to town
All dressed up with somewhere to go

I went to the BESA reception at the House of Lords earlier this week. BESA is the British Educational Suppliers Association and serves as a pressure group as well as a trade association. The cream of the educational software industry was there with representatives from big companies such as Crick Software and smaller more specialist companies such as Immersive Technology which has produced the award winning Kartouche brand and Sunflower, experts in Science.

Andrea Carr new chair of BESA
Rising Stars and now BESA for Andrea Carr

 Baroness Hooper, president of BESA, talked about the challenges ahead and Dominic Savage, Director General, pointed out that this was the last time colleagues from Becta would be attending as the organisation is due to close. However, he sounded a more optimistic note with the news of BETT Middle East, due to take place later this month in Abu Dhabi, and an increasingly open door to Indian markets for British educational software.

There was an enthusiastic response to the news that Andrea Carr, founder and Managing Director of educational publishing company Rising Stars, is to be the new chair of BESA.

Libraries v Computers

New technologies, software,

Primary teachers see ICT as more of a priority for investment than school libraries. In research carried out by the British Educational Suppliers Association’s (BESA) only two per cent of teachers indicated that libraries are more important than investing in interactive whiteboards (IWBs) and other classroom ICT. Nearly a third of teachers felt that classroom ICT was more important while the rest put ICT and libraries on an equal footing.

Director of BESA
EBooks challenge libraries

Ray Barker, director, BESA said, “Where banks of computers have been provided in the space that may have previously held storage for books, the growing use of eBooks and of the internet for research, is putting pressure on schools to justify expenditure on traditional books.”

The coalition government is beating the drum for a Back to Basics approach and on coming to power immediately announced the closure of Becta, the agency for ICT in schools. Primary teachers, it seems, do not share their view.

4 Nations, 1 Challenge

gifted and talented, software

Have you got at least 20 good mathematicians in your school? if so, you might like to have a go at The Four Nations Maths Challenge. This is the UK’s biggest ever online maths event and runs from 8th -12th November as a prelude to the international World Maths Day.

There are two parts to the contest: Live Mathletics, a competitive 60 second mental arithmetic challenge and Curriculum Mathletics which has questions allied to concepts and topics from the UK curriculum.

The contest is run via 3P Learning’s award winning learning platform Mathletics and is open to pupils of all ages and stages of maths learning. With trophies, medals and certificates this is turning into a sporting tournament and who knows, come 2012 we might have a Maths Olympics too!

To get the whole story go to: http://www.fournationsmathschallenge.co.uk/

Merry Christmas from Wishtrac

software, special needs
Christmas is coming!

I know it’s a bit early for Christmas but I also know that some of you like to get ahead of the game and plan well in advance. We are told that FREE is a great selling word so put FREE and Christmas together and it has to be a winner. Software supplier Wishtrac is offering a free advent calendar to all schools for use on their interactive whiteboards or computer.

The Advent Calendar comes complete with Christmas music and pupils can also find out about Christmas traditions, such as why we have Christmas trees, or why we pull crackers at Christmas time! It also contains links to non-Christian religious festivals which occur during December, such as Bodhi Day or Hannukah.

In the past two years, over 11,000 classes have downloaded the advent calendar. You can download The Advent Calendar free of charge by clicking here but in the true spirit of Christmas, Wishtrac is asking schools to donate to the charity Action for Children.

Prizes mean purchasers

disability, New technologies, software, special needs

It’s autumn. The nights are drawing in and the leaves are falling so this is a really good time to think about PRIZES. Every year at this time, software companies need to do an audit of their latest products and check out potential winners. If you don’t enter, no one will do it for it and there is a world of potential purchasers out there who may never know just how good your software is.

Some of you will have entered for BETT awards (http://tinyurl.com/http-bettapp-com)

The closing date is 4th October so get your skates on if you haven’t applied yet.

But for those of you in the world of special needs, the nasen awards might be even more relevant. These awards have been going for 18 years and are described as, “amongst the most prestigious in the UK, representing a recognised hallmark of inclusivity and excellence for educational suppliers, authors and publishers.”

This year nasen has announced a new category : ICT Resource to Support Teaching and Learning. This is to celebrate the power of technology as a tool for communication and they are looking for the most innovative and targeted ICT SEN resources which represent value for money. Entries must have been published between 1st May 2009 and 31st December 2010

Have a look at
http://www.nasen.org.uk/uploads/publications/144.pdf for the full list of criteria and details of how to enter.

The closing date is 31st December and the winners will be announced at nasen Live 2011 at the Reebok Stadium, Bolton on Tuesday 24th May 2011.

BETT Awards open for business

BETT, New technologies, software, special needs

The BETT Awards for 2011 are finally open. The awards are the educational technology equivalent of the Oscars and can generate very welcome publicity for small companies.

A device to help children with ADHD

Last year’s special needs short list included two products from TTS Group Limited, Attention Trackerwhich helps children with ADHD to keep on task andChatter Block which can be used for creating stories, sequencing and talk time activities. Other products included Farview from Optelec Limited, a handheld video magnifier, Crick’s online word processor,WriteOnline and CBBC’s Accessible Newsreader, a talking news website which is also switch accessible. The winner was RoboBraille from Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford. This was an internet service which converts digital text documents into Braille or audio file format.

Special needs company Inclusive Technology which runs a Fringe Show at the Hilton Hotel during BETT each year won the prestigious ICT Company of the Year 2010.  The judges praised the company for championing the cause of special educational needs/inclusion through ICT. They also said Inclusive Technology had “gone above and beyond the expectations of an ICT-solutions provider.”

This year’s awards will be run by Emap Connect and BESA (British Educational Suppliers Association). Because the government is closing Becta, the main sponsor of previous awards, the organisers will be charging an entry fee of £175 plus VAT per product (£155 plus VAT for BESA members).

BETT award entries can be completed online at http://www.bettawards.com/. The closing date is October 4 and the shortlist will be announced at the end of October.

Magic Moments in the Maths Classroom

gifted and talented, software

If you want to get pupils interested in maths, your interactive whiteboard is one way of bringing a little magic into the classroom. And how about using Magic Squares? This handy example is from Matthew Reames, a teacher at St Edmunds in Canterbury.  He has developed an Excel workbook with a host of different magic square examples. He has used a blank magic square with numbers 1-9. This encourages lots of predictions and questions and gets pupils thinking about why numbers need to be in certain positions.  Here is a simple example. Copy it into an Excel file and have a go.  Good Luck!

Becta an early casualty of cuts

software, special needs

So Becta is to be one of the first victims of the cuts. Last year I wrote that the Tories were interested in boxes and wires and the Labour Party in the uses of technology. How wrong I was! The Conservatives seem technophobic and are set to cut all spending on IT and not just in education.Some of the key figures in the world of ICT and education such as Professor Stephen Heppell believe that there is a groundswell of informed opinion that will inspire and sustain educators at the is difficult time. ‘Many wise and helpful bloggers and podders and tweeters are already providing a mass of inspiration and effective practice for others.’ I am not so sure. If money is not the driving force, teachers will find other things to do with their time rather than keep up to date with technology developments and new software opportunities.

The last government was behind the Home Access Project, a wonderful way of providing access to the internet and e-government for the poorest families.. My article about the demise of the Home Access Project and the impact on young people with severe disabilities can be accessed from Merlin John Online

If push comes to shove, I think there are 3 key things the government needs to preserve
• e-safety – keeping children safe online and reducing the power of the predators to get at vulnerable young people
• narrowing the digital divide – making sure that the smooth faced boys from Eton aren’t the only ones with E-power
• making a commitment that ICT for children with disabilities is the number one priority

If we lose any one of these, then it is back to the dark ages.

Bett Round-up 2010

BETT, software, special needs, , ,

Did you make it to Bett earlier this month? It was as busy as ever with over 30,000 visitors. There was lots to see and here is a round up of some of the key products. First there were my top ten products, ranging from Skin Deep by Northumbrian company Shoofly to My Zone, the nearest thing to a VLE for people with learning disabilities.

Then there was I Progress from Rising Stars. This was launched on stand at BETT and showed some really good resources for maths for gifted and talented pupils

Have a look at my review in the Guardian which is a round up of suppliers showing the latest products for pupil assessment and for literacy:

Those of you who are working with pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties and communication difficulties, might like to read about Laura Cryer’s class at Norfolk Park in Sheffield. They have built really good modules of work round a new piece of software called Pretty Things.

Don’t forget – next stop is the Education Show 4-6 March at the NEC in Birmingham.