If you’re heading to Bett today or tomorrow, here are a few things you might like to look at.

Groupcall

As well as a means of getting in touch with parents, it provides a really nice way of tracking kids attainment and linking it back to SIMS (and possibly other information management systems too).

AppFurnace by Kudlian

Enables you to create apps using a drag and drop interface, and you can edit the code that has been created. You can even add functionality with JavaScript. I saw an (albeit simple) app created in under a minute.

Paper Portal

Located on the Avantis stand, this is an augmented reality application. I haven’t yet seen it myself – journalist Chris Drage gave me a demo.

Makerbot

Reasonably-priced 3D printer. What I liked was the fact that the company has built up what it calls an ecosystem: online resources, printers, 3D scanners, and a “3D curriculum” that maps how you might use 3D printing in different subjects. I haven’t looked at this yet; as the company is American it may well be the American curriculum rather than the National Curriculum. You’d still be ale to make the leap though, I’m sure.

Lamp-free projector from Casio

Very nice piece of kit. I saw a prototype a couple of years ago and liked it then. The short part of the “short-throw” description is very short indeed.

ExampPro from Aqa

Not the sexiest of products but incredibly useful if you teach examination courses like GCSE or A Level. Not only does it enable you to compile your own question banks by subject, topic and even type of question, it has the examiners’ comments on how students answered the questions, meaning you can provide targeted guidance to your students very easily indeed. I used to have to collate these comments myself. I believe it marks automatically too. There is a free trial.

2Code

As always, 2Simple has “pulled it out of the hat”. Coding for the little ones using drag and drop techniques, but as with AppFurnace you can edit the code too.

Well, there you are. No time for much detail I’m afraid, but hopefully whetted your appetite.

If you have been to Bett, please share your views, findings, impressions etc by completing this incredibly short form: http://www.ictineducation.org/bett2014-review/

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