Bett 2008 – Universal Access

The Bett show has reached its 23rd year, and is as vibrant as ever, with 28,798 visitors from all over the UK, and a good sprinkling too from Europe, and as far afield as India and Canada. This event is the premier show-case for IT products and services for education and training, (hence British Education Training Technology – Bett – show) and is held in London’s Olympia exhibition hall in January each year.

Jim Knight, UK Schools Minister, opened this year’s event by confirming the government’s intention that a computer should become as ubiquitous as a calculator or pencil case, available to every child and student. “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.”   The Minister confirmed that the government’s Home Access taskforce (which was set up last year), will be issuing clear proposals and recommendations for ensuring universal availability of IT resources.

It in intended that funding for this goal will come from central government, with £30m of the ‘Harnessing Technology’ grant being used to help families gain access to technology, he added.

Catering for the individual

With this in mind, and education e-strategy targets now within reach, personalised learning was an important theme for Bett 2008. First announced in 2005, this government e-strategy sets the expectation that each pupil – and eventually all students - will have access to a personalised online learning space.    Becta’s view is that this will become part of the learning platform, so that education can extend beyond the classroom, accessed anywhere and at any time, and that students can collaborate in a safe online environment. The range of offerings at Bett 2008, underlines that this learning platform is not a single off-the-shelf product, but a collection of tools.

This presents particular challenges when catering for Special Needs pupils. Little has changed since the Warnock report of 1978, which identified that 20% of pupils and students have special needs at some time.  The conclusio

ns of this report are as relevant as ever – after all its education that has changed, not basic human development – but of course its findings were drawn long before the computer became so prevalent and ubiquitous in the education environment.  So it was good to see a number of companies at Bett showing how these students can be included in these grand educational strategies.

Special Needs Software supplier, Dolphin, showed a variety of ways to assist those with visual impairments use their computer easier. Their Supernova, Hal, and Lunar software can be made available to individuals on a specific pc, or (if the establishment is big enough to merit a site license) universally throughout the school or college network.  Now for those on a laptop or at home, this award-winning Dolphin screen enlargement software has become fully portable, being available on a usb ‘pen’.  As Steve Bennett, Dolphin’s International Sales Manager says “Students can do their work on any pc now, and are no longer stuck with using a single specified machine in one location. And when we tried out our Supernova usb pen last year in schools, all the other kids though it was so cool they wanted one too”.

Following this trend with a cool tool of their own, was Special Needs favourite Texthelp.  The Texthelp software is already widely used to assist students of all abilities with dyslexia and literacy challenges.  Like Dolphin, Texthelp were showing how they address the twin challenge of achieving personalised learning for all, with equality of opportunity.  The TextHelp USB pen device is a convenient add-in for the estimated 50% of special needs students struggling with literacy.  Also on show was Texthelp’s new web-access software Browsealoud, which can overcome many challenges by reading out web-pages, making it very suitable for children and many adults too.

Bett 2008 included several vendors addressing the whole range of physical and learning Special Needs. Typical of these multi-solution vendors is Keytools (www.keytools.co.uk), with a range of almost 1,000 items.  This includes some highly attractive and innovative keyboards, mice and other physical devices to assist users, through to a ‘one-stop shop’ of solutions, including the above mentioned Dolphin and Texthelp software products. Keytools sales manager, Phil Guest explained “ The need for solutions for Special Needs students has been evident since pc’s were first introduced into education, when we first started.  And Keytools is daily developing new solutions to ensure that no-one is left behind because of poor design, or ill-chosen equipment and software.”  Typical of Keytools inventiveness is their demonstration of RSIGuard, more generally used to protect against RSI.  Keytools were able to show how this can also be used to measure and manage IT metrics of both pupils and staff – an important step in ensuring inclusion, and no doubt a boon for assessors..

Microsoft was also very much on-theme, with well-attended seminars for its learning platform – “ Learning Gateway’  - which provides the framework for blending e-learning solutions into one fully managed environment.  Steve Beswick, education director for the company 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 Bett is the key opportunity for schools to ask questions and make sure that they are prepared.”


Finally, the last word on Bett 2008 must go to 14-year-old Amanda, a pupil from one of Hampshire’s secondary schools, joyously helping to demonstrate interactive products in the Special Needs zone. Asked what she liked about the various cool tools, and whether the government should be trying to include everyone, she said: “These [devices] make the lessons more fun and I can keep up. It will be great if I could do this at home too.”

Well done Amanda – you’ve obviously go the hang of this year’s Bett – see you all next year!

A.Bility

January 2008