BETT 2015

The fourth time that I visited the British Education Training and Technology show, better known as BETT. This time I was invited to come over and do a session about global collaboration in the Secondary Education Learn Live arena. I travelled with my dad (SMART Exemplary Educator as well) and joined other SEEs in the SMART Platinum Suite or and the main floor of the BETT show.

With Maria and Chris in the Platinum Suite

On day one I was just browsing on the main floor until my presentation was due. While walking and visiting a few stands it occurred to me that nothing new and/or innovative was there to see. A few things I really like is LearnPad and I do hope that working with iPads in my school will be quite successful instead of the warnings that Chris Klein (exhibitor LearnPad) gave me. I also liked the furniture of Space Oasis on which was comfortable, looked really nice and on which you could write with a dry eraser marker. And of course I liked the new solution by SMART Technologies: The SMARTkapp, the reinvented version of the dry-erase board AND the flip-over which is due to it's simplicity amazing. No nonsense, yet super hight-tech information sharing system which could be used in the classroom as well. I would really like to have won one at the BETT contest during the BETT days. I attended and even contributed to the session of the official release of SMARTkapp at BETT in the Platinum Suite by CTO Warren Barkley. And in the evening SMARTamp wins the BETT Award, which I can relate to for sure. SMARTamp is becoming more and more my favorite solution in (and outside) the classroom.

On day two I met my buddy SEE from Madrid, Spain: Sergio! Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend his presentation about Augmented Reality, because it was due on Saturday. Although I was able to attend to the presentation of Chris and Maria about their global collaboration project and the presentation about SOLE. Both in the Platinum Suite. After collecting a lot of pens and other goodies for my kids and students I returned home with a lot of new input that still needs processing ...

After the two days of attending BETT it became very clear to me that it's still the teacher that is key in developing education and his students, regardless of the use of technology (both hardware and software) furniture, books or whatever. As Chris Klein pointed out to me: "... a good teacher could use only a loaf of bread to provide a good lesson." 

With my dad in the SMART Platinum Suite

Creating Global Learners at #BETT2015

I applied to do a session at the BETT show again about Global Collaboration, which was turned down at first. Later I received an e-mail from the organization that my application was accepted and was due on Wednesday the 21st in the Learn Live Session arena for secondary education. Yes!

I talked to my friend and global collaboration partner and SMART Exemplary Educator Emil Waldhauser that I would like to have him as co-presenter, since he was attending the BETT anyway. He accepted my invite and we created the presentation in Google Drive, in order that we could both contribute to the presentation. Online collaboration indeed. Whilst I'm writing this now, perhaps we should've created our presentation in SMARTamp. Especially since we mentioned that in our presentation a few times and to the fact that our students collaborate online crossing borders in that same online platform SMARTamp.

The presentation was visited by a few people we know, such as my dad, Ainhoa (from SMART Technologies) and a lot of others that showed a lot of interest afterwards and did ask questions to us. I haven't heard any British accent and it's great to have them in the Google+ group for Global Collaboration. The presentation is for sharing and to be viewed by everybody that's interested. Stay in touch!


Video shot by my father and SMART Exemplary Educator Ad Berlijn:

St. Mathew Academy success story

Due to the fact that the #gafesummit was cut down to just one day, I had an extra in London. On the website of SMART Technologies I searched if there was a SMART Showcase School in London to visit, among other interesting things to do. And actually there was one and via Twitter I got in touch with the principal of St. Matthew Academy Mr. Michael Barry and he replied that I was more than welcome to pay a visit. Via email I explained why I wanted to visit the school and while I was there the school provided me a guided tour, lunch in the school cantina and a wifi connection to get some other work done after the visit. Mr. Barry trusted me enough to offer me his office to work a little (Tweet, blog, check in for flight home and email), while he was away, how nice is that.

During the guided tour which was done by a too modest student, I was allowed to take pictures, ask loads of questions and had a chat with a few teachers. I was particularly interested in the subject geography and its curriculum, the way computers, devices and Raspberry Pi was being used and of course the in the use of the SMART Boards. After all St. Matthew Academy was a SMART Showcase School. The school did not encourage students to bring their own device or provide mobile devices yet, as I believe that is part of the roadmap for the upcoming years. So no information to gain from the school on how they were using mobile devices.
During the tour I witnessed a geography lesson and talked to the teacher, whom explained to me that she did not use books, students didn't have books and she created her own different assignments to differentiate in her lesson. Some students were brighter than others, or could handle more lesson content than others. They were working individually on creating a geography newspaper about the storms on the coast. I liked that very much, because the students could be creative and it was all about their own community. When the teacher needed to explain something about physical geography, she used school books that remained in the classroom. This particular teacher was the right teacher for the group of students that attend this school. I would love to see her and her students using mobile devices and/or web 2.0-tools for her designed assignments.
Another thing I really liked was that coding was in the curriculum of ICT and that the school had began with the Raspberry Pi this year. Attached to each monitor in the computerroom was also a Raspberry Pi besides a regular Windows 8 computer. The students need to learn how to code and program a small computer such as the Raspberry Pi. In another computer room there were lots of iMac computers to work on. Great!

Media was a subject taught at this school as well. There is a film-club, film and photo shoot room with green screen and they produce a lot of movies and films and join lots of competitions and also won a few (lots?). With the iMac room and all this looked very professional and this is probably the most professional one that I've seen in secondary education. And you could tell by the enthusiasm of the students that they were engaged by this and how this subject is being taught in school.

After the tour I had another chat with the principal and the head of the secondary school and they asked me very good questions. They asked what I thought was good and asked me was I thought was not good. I explained that from the first few steps that I took in the school I immediately noticed that this school was student centered. At the exception the lady was first helping out the student that came in after me before she attended me. Same sort of atmosphere I felt at some schools while I was in Finland visiting schools. I also mentioned the matters from above. The one thing that could be better in my opinion was the use of SMART Notebook. That interactive whiteboard software could and should be used way more often to enhance interactivity in the classroom instead of showing Powerpoint presentations. Perhaps I could do some training next time I'm around. ;) Anyway, you'd best check it out for yourself and witness several success stories from this school by principal Michael Barry.