Now in its 23rd year, the British Education Training Technology (Bett) show, was as busy as ever. The four-day event, held at London Olympia from 9 to 12 January, attracted about 30,000 visitors, with some coming from as far afield as the Middle East and Canada.
Opening Bett 2008, schools minister Jim Knight announced that he wanted a home computer to be as standard as a calculator or pencil case for every child. “We have to find a way to make access universal, or it is not fair,” Knight said. “More than a million children and their families have no access to a computer in the home.”
He confirmed that the government’s home access taskforce, set up last year, will issue clear recommendations in April on making universal home access a reality ­ particularly in disadvantaged areas ­ and how to provide the technical and maintenance support to back it up.
“I see some tough negotiations ahead with some of the big providers, but they have a lot to gain too ­ potentially it could mean millions more customers for them. I don’t see why the government should not be able to get technology at a good price for low income families,” he said.
The government will divert £30m of the Harnessing Technology Grant funding to help low income families gain access to technology at home.
He also announced that all secondary schools will be expected to have real-time reporting systems up and running by 2010 and all primary schools two years later.
“Real-time reporting will deepen the school-parent relations and is not a substitute for regular personal contact with teachers,” Knight said. “Effective technology systems can significantly cut the staff workloads ­ but it has to be manageable for
individual schools and meaningful for parents.”
Becta, the education technology agency, will be guiding schools in adapting their existing technology to provide real-time reporting.
Knight also launched a £600,000 pilot, to be run by Becta with key industry players, which will look at lowering the cost of devices and connectivity and informing parents about the benefits of a home computer.

The personal touch
With one of the government’s e-strategy targets coming into play this year, personalised learning was a big theme at Bett 2008. The government’s e-strategy, announced in 2005, set the expectation that by spring 2008, every pupil should have access to a personalised online learning space with the potential to support an e-portfolio. It also stated that by 2010 every school should have integrated learning and management systems in place.
So what exactly does this mean? According to Becta, a personal online learning space forms part of a wider set of technologies called a learning platform. Learning platforms are about taking education beyond the classroom walls so that work can be accessed anytime, anywhere and students can collaborate in a safe online environment. A learning platform is not a single off-the-shelf product, but a collection of tools.
Public sector VAR Northgate launched its n-able managed learning environment at Bett. N-able integrates all of a school’s key systems, such as e-registration, in one application. It allows teachers to deliver personalised learning plans, and helps staff to manage learning, including integrating data from
n-able to provide a more informed overview of a pupil’s needs.
Michael Murdock, Northgate’s Building Schools for the Future solutions director, said: “N-able brings everything together in one online location for the whole school community to access. Implementing
n-able opens communication lines between home and school, and teachers are able to better manage personalised learning for every child.”
N-able comprises a number of applications including building management systems, library systems and cashless catering, including nutritional information and CCTV.

Through the Gateway
Microsoft also showcased its learning platform offering ­ Learning Gateway 2007, which provides a framework for blending e-learning solutions into one fully managed environment.
Steve Beswick, director of education at Microsoft UK, said: “Meeting government targets for personalised learning and online learning platforms is something that all schools need to be on track for in 2008, so we saw Bett as a key opportunity for schools to ask questions and make sure that they are prepared.”
Microsoft also announced that it had collaborated with two of its major partners, Research Machines (RM) and Software4Students, to enable students to purchase software used in the classroom for home use at a reduced cost, saving up to 90 per cent on standard retail prices.
Sticking with the theme of personalised learning, was Steljes. The audiovisual distributor unveiled its Steljes Anytime concept which involves a range of evolving devices, from Smartphones and PDAs to ultra-mobile portable PCs (UMPCs) with unlimited data airtime, educational content, support and a suite of software applications.
Graham Wylie, group director of product marketing at Steljes, said: “Steljes Anytime is the next stage in the evolution of mobile learning. It requires a degree of connectivity and we have partnered with Vodafone to provide a 3G offering. However, it will only enable data, not voice.”
Anytime is a Steljes product, but will be delivered by a range of Steljes’ vendors. For example Smart Technologies’ SynchronEyes classroom management software can control multiple Anytime devices; Turning Technologies’ vPad virtual keypad software will work on Anytime devices; and content will be provided by a range of software partners including Espresso.
“For resellers, this is a real opportunity to get in at the start of an emerging market and build deeper relationships with their education customers,” said Wylie. “It will provide a strong repeat relationship with a school because there will be lots of upgrade options with Anytime.
“It’s about taking mobile learning to the next level and offering the right choice of devices, with the right set of content and support, and packaging it all in a way that is suitable for a school.”
Steljes will begin shipping Anytime packages in quarter two, but wants to work with VARs now to define the final package details.
“It is not just one product or one package ­ there are a range of devices, a range of software options and a range of support options. I believe it will be priced at less than a can of coke per pupil per day,” Wylie added.

Interactive activity
Interactive products were as prominent as ever at this year’s show. The big draw to vendor Promethean’s stand was its new Activexpression learner response system or interactive voting system as it is more commonly referred to. Promethean used Bett to launch the new handset, which is the first voting system to offer the ability to text complete sentences.
Paul Berry, director of UK business at Promethean, said: “Activexpression has been the main thing people wanted to come and see on our stand; there is nothing like it on the market at the moment.”
First shipments will commence in the middle of February, but according to Berry, Promethean has already secured orders for 4,000 units.
“That is all from secondary schools,” Berry added. “I think there will be interest from primary schools, but I think that they will tend to opt for our simpler voting system, Activote, which has been out in the market for more than two years now.”
One of the challenges Promethean claims to have is to get more of its channel switching on to the business opportunity that learner response systems offer.
“Resellers have been waiting for us to make the first big move which we have now done. Activexpression proves what can be done with this technology,” Berry said. “As classrooms start to fill with interactive whiteboards (IWBs), the focus will shift from having the interactivity solely at the front of class to the back of the class as well, which is what interactive voting does. It gives every child a voice.”
Promethean developed Activexpression following teachers’ requests for improved interactivity in voting handsets.
“Pretty much all the teachers we have shown it to have liked it, but there is a perception that it is going to be too expensive for them so we have work to do in presenting it to them in innovative ways,” said Berry. “They think at the moment they have to spend thousands of pounds to buy it, but there should be other models that the channel can deploy, such as leasing or pay as you go.”
Rival voting system vendors Qwizdom, Smart Technologies and Turning Technologies also launched new versions of their handsets at Bett. Qwizdom’s new Q2 voting system has been designed to appeal
predominantly to primary schools following the vendor’s success in secondary schools with its other voting handsets.
Gary Morrison, sales director at Qwizdom, said: “We’ve reached a point now where voting systems are here to stay. There is a definite maturing of the marketplace. Our Q2 system is more ergonomically friendly to fit in a small child’s hand. It also features an e-ink screen that requires minimal power to display an image making it cheaper to run.”
According to Morrison, innovation will not come from the handsets themselves, but from the software developed to work with the systems.
Dave Martin, chairman of Smart, agreed: “At Smart we like simplicity and we think version two of our Senteo voting system is simple to use. However, we can add more functionality through software.”
Meanwhile, the new XR handset from Turning Technologies features a multi-line LCD display and alphanumeric entry system, allowing pupils to respond to questions with text or numerical answers.
Mitt Nathwani, head of product pioneering for Steljes, sole distributor of Turning Technologies in the UK, said: “This new handset boasts the largest storage capacity of any keypad on the market, ensuring maximum user participation. One of the best features is the compact size and light-weight design; this makes it really easy to transport the system from room to room or even during external field trips.”

Registering interest
VAR A2Z Core IT Solutions, which has exhibited at Bett for the past five years, featured a biometric registration system on its stand this year. According to A2Z’s technical director, Mark Coleman, biometric technology in schools will soon become more commonplace.
“Last year the government issued a whitepaper giving its approval to this type of technology being used in schools and since then we have had a lot more interest. We sell
e-Registration from vendor Live Register, which replaces old school registers with a system that enables students to register for themselves.”
A2Z also sells Live Register’s sister product, Cashless Catering. “Again it is biometric controlled and enables parents to have control over what their children eat. A lot of schools are starting to implement this type of system,” Coleman added.
Meanwhile, NEC Computers unveiled its next-generation Virtual PC Center (VPCC) at this year’s show. The VPCC is NEC’s fully integrated virtualisation offering for fixed or mobile PCs and is well suited to an education environment.
David Newbould, UK product marketing manager at NEC Computers, told CRN: “The VPCC enables hundreds of users to work on virtual PCs that are connected to a centralised server through a small terminal that has no moving parts, consumes 77 per cent less power than conventional PCs and can be mounted on the back of a monitor to maximise desk space. It also includes accelerated multimedia to provide users with enhanced use of multimedia applications.”
A particularly important factor for the education market is that the desktop terminal is low cost, does not store any information in it and will not work as a standalone unit, so it will only function if it is connected to its server.
Finally, the last word has to go to 12-year-old James Harper, a pupil at Thomas Bennett secondary school in Crawley, who was helping to demonstrate interactive products on Promethean’s stand. Asked what he liked about IWBs and voting systems, Harper said: “They make the lesson a lot more fun. It would be good if they could be used across all subjects in our school.”
A safe Bett for innovation
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