The Best and Worst of the Bett Conference 2016

bett2017londonexcellogohomepage

 

 

 

Our attendance at the Bett Conference 2016 was approached from two perspectives – as a business, and most importantly to us, as teachers. It was amazing to see so many initiatives all under one roof. When you see everything together in such a  large venue like the Excel Arena, it clarifies just how many products and initiatives that exist that are promoted from the perspective that they will save schools and teachers time and money. It is clearly a profitable market, and it is also becoming a very crowded and competitive marketplace.

English and Literacy Highlights:
Hodder: Had a great stall, engaging representatives, who were knowledgeable and helpful, and didn’t give the hard sell. They were keen to send study guides as exemplars. It will be interesting to see how much time and effort has been spent on the adaptions to the new syllabus.

Wordshark: Looked interesting: They claim to combine the ‘excitement of games with the serious task of learning to read and spell.’  With the increased focus on spelling and grammar – and the unfortunate, and ridiculous task of Year 7 teachers that means any students ‘failing’ Year 6 will have to repeat it in Year 7. This programme will give teachers access to the spelling programmes, and an easy way for students to learn words and spelling in context, and in relation to other subjects. In my opinion, this is not a substitute for reading, but is definitely a way of engaging students in spelling and words through using games.

ClickMeeting: A platform for creating a virtual classroom for teaching, training, meetings and tuition. This is an area that could definitely be explored. Although, call me old fashioned, but I think I would still rather actually be with the students and teachers.

Scribeasy: A small business that have created a programme to get students to use images and language to create and encourage story writing.

Kahoot!: An interesting platform for teachers to share resources and ideas. They claim to provide ‘ a playful and powerful’ experience for teachers and students. They have different ideas that you can amend and adapt.

Clarify: A Norwegian company who are selling a system of electronic dictionaries, where students can have their own spelling app that provides them with Collins Dictionary definitions, sounds, and a variety of meanings within different contexts. There are English to English, but they can also have a choice of 19 other languages, making it useful for students studying English, as well as EAL students. It also allows access th checking words from electronic documents. As many students have smart phones, but they don’t have dictionaries, I think this is an intersting avenue to explore.

What do we REALLY need?

Ultimately, the size of the stalls for some of these products came as a shock, they are clearly making millions of pounds from our schools. This is all very well, but as most departments are still having to scrape together enough money to buy books and resources, is it all totally necessary?

We came away thinking, wouldn’t it be cheaper and easier to:

  • go back to setting homework and ticking it off in your planner,
  • create a nice little job for someone collecting in, and then counting the dinner money,
  • creating a seating plan on edexcel, and as you add the data, get to know your students as you do it.
  • Send a letter home, with a slip on the bottom that has to be returned

Spy and Pry OR Motivate and Educate?

Apparently school websites are old hat – all schools, parents and students need Apps now. According to the education App creators, (of which there were many) they are easier for busy parents to access and use. As a parent my issue with App use is, as my children are at a large secondary school 99% of the information I don’t need, or want. Most importantly, and I appreciate this is very old fashioned, I talk to my children to find out what they are doing, and what they need. Now, there is a novelty! To be fair, I do like the texts that I receive about football matches and training, and the odd detention, but as my kids seem to sort themselves out, I don’t really need it. I have come to the conclusion that such an overload of unnecessary information creates an unnecessary dependency, especailly at a time when what we should be doing as both teachers and parents is encouraging independent thoughts and actions.

Dinner Money Dilemmas

I also refuse to transfer money into the school bank for their dinners. I give them the cash, and they have to make it last – some students have no concept of cost because there is an endless supply of magic money, where they put no thought into how much they spend, or how much anything costs. It is all very Big Brother – we can monitor and check using these high tech devices, but do we really need to do this? I don’t think so. School funding is changing yet again, at some point very soon they will have to decide what is truly important. Let’s hope their decision falls in favour of the true needs of teachers and students, and not on the side of ICT and industry – who are giving us more and more ways of spending our precious funds on products that spy and pry, not motivate and educate.

At such a large event, we maybe missed a few opportunities for expolring products. What was most depressing, was there there were almost no strategies or devices or training opportunities to actually support the improvement of teaching, and the improvement of student learning. It facilitated it, and arguably enhanced it, but there was nowhere near enough of a focus of actually improving the real and purposeful experiences of both teachers and students. There was too much of a sales slant where it was very much about them selling their product, and little or no effort about how their product would actually truly benefit schools within the reality of budget cuts and countless initiatives and examination changes.

ICT Should NEVER replace an exceptional teacher!

One final note, and a massive positive for teachers and teaching across the world. We came away thinking that no matter how great their technology was, it was by no means a substitute for a great teacher!

 

 

 

Share this:
Shopping Cart
  • Your cart is empty.
Scroll to Top