More than 850 suppliers will be showcasing their latest products across four days at Bett 2018, offering visitors the opportunity to touch, test and evaluate solutions. Being able to get to grips with products and demonstrate their value is perhaps one of the most crucial features of Bett, and to help visitors explore the practicalities of working with technology, the Solutions Den will be demystifying some of the latest tech developments for teachers. Alongside the leading technology firms and education resource suppliers, Bett Futures returns again to help visitors discover some of the boldest and most inventive products that look set to be game-changers in education. Meanwhile the STEAM Village emphasises the role that creativity and the arts play in STEM education, helping teachers to keep up with the growing demand for skills that will form a crucial part of our future.
Avantis Education (stand C215): ClassVR uses virtual and augmented reality with ‘standalone’ virtual reality headsets, a student-friendly interface, gesture controls, embedded educational resources, and simple-to-use teacher controls. You can visit Avantis Education and talk to some of their pioneer school teachers that have seen incredible outcomes from embedding VR and AR into their lessons. Try out their bank of educationally focused VR and AR activities and immerse yourself in their engaging Trenches experience – commemorating the centenary of World War One – and take away a FREE VR viewer headset!
KUBO (stand F70): KUBO is an educational robot that teaches children aged between four and 10 how to code even before they can read and write. Its physical programming language, TagTiles, consists of individual tiles that fit together like a puzzle to make sequences of code. They take the abstract world of programming and make it tactile, visual and kid-friendly. They’re also flexible enough to teach a number of subjects, including language, maths and science. KUBO’s curriculum – the Coding License – lays down the foundations of computational literacy, while at the same time teaching students crucial 21st-century skills like communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking.
Minted Box (stand F62): Rather than focus on ready-made solutions for schools, Minted Box takes its approach to development a step further; inviting schools to share their ideas and offering the opportunity to earn some revenue from the result. The company, which builds technologies for businesses like Tesco, Wagamamas, Vodafone, Royal Mail and ASOS, looks at ways to create tailored solutions that address customers’ needs to the letter. These solutions cover a broad array of features, from artificial intelligence to support productivity, to gamification in order to increase engagement. At Bett, the team’s time will be spent listening to educators and working with them to turn their ideas into a reality, providing schools with a direct route for great ideas to be designed and built, either at a one-off cost, on a shared revenue basis, or even for free.
InEnergy LLC (stand E402): InEnergy is a team of professionals who develop and implement high-tech solutions in the field of fuel cells and hydrogen energy. InEnergy, as a company, combines the industry expertise of Russian research centres and the world’s leading manufacturers. This allows them to provide leading Russian universities and technology and research parks with unique educational equipment to help students discover electrochemistry and renewable energy laws and principles, eventually achieving significant success in their own research studies. A wide range of commercially available products, their own research and development centre, a high level of technical expertise, and extensive partnerships in the industry are the advantages that position InEnergy as one of the leaders in fuel cell (FC) and hydrogen energy in Russia and CIS.
Pi-Top (stand F480): Co-founded by Jesse Lozano and Ryan Dunwoody, pi-top is one of the fastest growing edtech start-ups in Europe. STEAM, (science, technology, engineering, arts and maths) is multi-disciplinary by nature with innovation happening as a result of breaking down the artificial silos between these subject areas. The newly introduced pi-top, a modular laptop, brings STEAM education to life via the power of physical computing. Supported by unique curriculum tools for teachers and learners, endorsed by OCR and the pi-top Champion Network, the pi-top ecosystem encourages experimentation with electronics and coding across the curriculum for real-world challenges beyond the screen itself. Used in over 1,500 schools and code clubs in every continent, and rapidly increasing worldwide, they call this approach “learning by making” and it is designed to provide learners with the skills and knowledge to thrive in a transforming world.
Tassomai (stand F80): Tassomai is an online learning programme that’s helping students get better grades and making teachers’ lives easier by reducing the time spent on admin and marking. Students learn by answering multiple choice-style micro-quizzes on computers or their mobile phones; Tassomai’s intelligent algorithm then works out what they know and what they don’t and tailors the quizzes accordingly, ensuring that they’re working through the material at the right pace in time for their exams. Tassomai’s data visualisation tools allow teachers to instantly view the performance of individual students or entire class groups, enabling them to see what’s been understood, identify any weaknesses, and tailor their teaching accordingly.
TRI Soft (stand H241) The company states its core principles as Technology, Research and Innovation software, and its recent focus has been towards developing serious games and educational simulators. One such example is the pilot project ‘Virtual platform for safety crossing’ that involves learning safety street rules in a controlled, virtual environment that saves teachers’ and children’s time and avoids the dangers of learning in the physical world. At Bett 2018, the company will present its latest educational tool – the interactive floor, called ‘FluurMat’, which encourages children to learn and collaborate, solve tasks, or just enjoy themselves. The interactive floor can be used to teach core subjects in an interactive way.
Bett’s mission is to bring together people, ideas, practices and technologies so that educators and learners can fulfil their potential. Focusing on content and products sure to change the game, now and in the future, helps to support the community of educators and innovators that attend each year, and it’s the commitment, innovation and dedication from educators that makes the biggest difference to pupils. After all, if the human resource is the single most important factor in meeting the demands of the future, that makes teachers one of the most vital tools in our society.
Bett 2018 will run over four days, from 24 to 27 January 2018 at ExCeL, London. For more information, to find out more about the programme of content, and to register for your free pass, visit: www.bettshow.com