Dan, Qaixen Consultant, reveals his key takeaways and best bits from his visit to BETT 2023, the education exhibition of the year, in his latest blog.
Back from Bett! What a show!
After another fantastic show, I am back with my take on this year’s BETT and what a show it was. I remember the good old days of going to the previous venue of the Olympia, however this show pales in comparison to its modern-day counterpart, expanding across several halls within the Excel centre. With my backpack in tow, I was ready, but what did I discover over the course of the day?
E Sports are in!
The first surprise of the event was the huge number of E-sports equipment and peripherals that were on show. Gaming in education has always had a showing at BETT but this year was the first time I noticed how much of a presence it had. From Minecraft in education, to actual E-sports tournaments there was a lot to see. Obviously, this was aimed at private or academy secondary schools, but it did make me wonder how far away we are from having integrated E-sports equipment within our classrooms? Could the classroom of the future be training the UK’s next generation of CS:GO champions (Counters Strike: Global Offensive for those of who are over a certain age bracket)? Is it possible that virtual trips will be made to historical locations built in Minecraft or P.E. lessons given over to one hour of compulsory League of Legends practise? A sobering thought but if BETT is to be believed then maybe not so far of in the future as educators like to think.
New Tools in Immersive Reader
Regular readers of this blog will be aware that I think immersive reader is great. During BETT, I was lucky enough to be able to watch one of the Microsoft talks on the latest up-dates to it. Immersive reader now has added features to help with recall and feedback. It is now able to identify how fluent a reader is and then choose words that a struggling reader may need to practise on. In addition to this, teachers can use the analytics tools to help assess a child’s accuracy and fluency. This can then be used by the teacher to build a picture of the child’s learning journey and help with assessment. I had the pleasure of showing this to a colleague of mine the other day, and I can tell you his face was a picture. As I’ve mentioned before, anything that saves time is a game changer in education. Full marks from me Microsoft.
Connect @BETT
Another new experience (for me at least) was Connect @ Bett. The idea of this was to allow people to meet others from Government all the way to solution providers in the world of education Technology. This space gave people the opportunity to develop ideas, talk to others and express their thoughts about the education technology sphere. In theory it seemed a great idea to me, however I must admit that after observing the area for some time, it did seem to me that most of the space was being used as somewhere to work. Whether this was the intended idea, I do not know but hopefully the idea will keep growing as I think it is a good one.
Canva
Another standout of this year for me was Canva. I wish I could have spent more time going through their designs and animation tools. Coming up with fresh ways to present a subject can be daunting but the Canva design tools really gives the information a professional look. My only concern with this though is that it takes time to learn any new software and as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs teachers are notoriously resistant to new experiences. However, I felt that Canva were on to something and will be looking at them in closer detail.
Final Thoughts
There was so much to take in over the day I felt that I couldn’t do the event justice within the space of this humble blog. As I mentioned last month, I don’t often go to many of the talks, so I was really pleased to catch the Microsoft talk on new Teams Features (some of which I may talk about in the future). Overall, I recommend going to BETT at least once, especially if you are new to the role of Head of I.T. I enjoyed the event immensely and was even able to meet the legendary Michael Rosen who quite frankly made this teacher’s day.
