Digital Tools from BETT 2019

As a Google reference college, we were invited to present on the Google stand at the BETT Show in January. It was a great opportunity to share how we’re using Google for Education at Barton Peveril and show the impact it has had on digital learning. While at BETT we got to do lots of exploring and talked to various ed tech providers.

Peter Horner (IT Manager) presenting about “Going Google” at BETT 2019
Adam Say (Library Manager) talking about using Google Sites at BETT 2019

The following is a list of tools and other things we learned about and thought would be useful to share:

Workbench

Workbench looks like a promising tool for student-centered learning. It contains a library of ready-made lessons and allows you to create your own. Workbench integrates with Google Classroom allowing you to easily post student-directed lessons to your classes with simple to follow instructions.

Science Journal

This is a Google app that is available on Android or Chromebooks that enables you to record data such as motion, light and sound into a students’ own science journal.

Chromebooks Everywhere

Acer, Asus, HP, and Lenovo all debuted new education focused Chromebooks at BETT this year. They all use the new Intel Gemini Lake processors so should perform well. Many of the new Chromebooks are 2-in-1 devices with a 360-degree hinge and stylus, so you can use the device as a tablet. For the first time in an education Chromebook, we’ll see a 3:2 (1366×912) screen, which will suit it being used in tablet mode. With so many new Chromebooks, we’ll need to do our research to find the best Chromebook for our students when we make our purchasing decisions later this year.

Squid

For all of our touch-screen Chromebooks, Squid offers high-quality digital handwriting. We tried it out and it feels much more like writing on paper. There is a limited free version available that allows you to take notes on a variety of paper types with various pens. The paid for version allows you to markup PDFs or images.

Jamboard

Google were providing live demos of its Jamboard at BETT. The Jamboard, which costs just under £4,000, is a digital upgrade to a traditional whiteboard, providing new ways for real-time collaboration. The good news is that Jamboard is also available as a free app on Chromebooks. You can try out the online version of Jamboard by visiting – https://jamboard.google.com/

Adobe Spark

Adobe were promoting Spark, which is a web app you can use to create graphics, web pages, and videos in minutes. Adobe Spark is something we’ve already started using here. If you’d like to try Spark, go to spark.adobe.com and sign in using your college email address and password. If you’ve already signed into Google G Suite you shouldn’t have to login again.