Best of Bett 2020

London’s annual BETT Show – the long-running exhibition of new educational technology – took place in late January, highlighting the massive array of hardware, software, platforms and products on offer for schools.

The show is amazing, but can also be overwhelming, and it can often be difficult to figure out which of these new objects of desire will actually solve a real educational problem, and which are the latest shiny solutions in search of a problem.

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      string(4472) "Sir Linkalot is my award-winning app that is transforming how spelling is taught in schools and at home. It is brilliant for all common exception words all the way from was, two and they up to accommodation, manoeuvre and even onomatopoeia!It uses a hugely powerful learning tool that is often overlooked. This is the mnemonic – a really tricky word to spell – which simply means a link to help you remember.What Sir Linkalot does is to take the word off the paper and bring to life with short, beautifully crafted, animations. Have a look at this little video clip to see Sir Linkalot in action. The Future of Spelling – I just love the children’s honesty!The animations, combined with the voice-overs of Sir Linkalot and Lady Lexicographer (played by Susie Dent from Countdown), make sure that even the trickiest spellings get lodged in the long-term memory bank. Susie is especially good on the etymology of words. So many everyday words have an interesting story to tell as this example of a ‘Susie Story” shows. Ocean – OriginImpactOver the last 10 years I have presented to 150,000 children (4 to 18 year olds) and 15,000 teachers at 500 schools. The app is not just about spellings. It covers all aspects of literacy: vocabulary, homophones, punctuation, grammar, rules and patterns. So, it is useful for secondary school children too and helps you meet the DfE requirements.It has been my mission to spread the joy of linking and to sell my two books to staff and parents so the good work can continue at home and at school.I started a daily online show a while ago called Sir Linkalot Time with twice weekly appearances from Susie. It involves lots of audience participation with children creating their own links and posting them on social media. Schools are having daily 15 minute spelling sessions calling it ‘Sir Linkalot Time’ where the teacher assigns a child to be the Sir Linkalot monitor who plays the 4 or 5 animations, freeing them up to walk around the class to help children on an individual basis. Independent learning – you’ve got to love it! Parents are given a unique code ‘gratis’ so their child can practise at home.Why Sir Linkalot is differentLinking is a very different approach from phonics but it reaches those learners who have struggled for years with the conventional methods of learning spellings.All too often they would learn the word for the test but it never reached their long-term memory so the next time they wanted to write it down, they would get the spelling wrong.No one has ever tackled tricky words before and this is why it’s getting a lot of attention. Ruth Miskin CBE, founder of the UK’s number 1 phonics programme ‘’Read, Write Inc’’ tunes in to the show every day and thinks it complements her work perfectly as she has nothing, by definition for non-phonetic words, e.g. done, one and some. She was an advisor to the former Schools Minister, Nick Gibb MP. When I met him, he even volunteered a couple of links of his own!It’s been proven that visual learning is the most effective way to retain information as the current method, rote-learning, simply doesn’t work for many students, especially those with dyslexia. Alison Walters, a teacher with dyslexia, said: ‘I am absolutely blown away by this spelling technique! As a dyslexic teacher, I know this is going to be absolute gold for my pupils. The best thing I’ve seen in years and I can’t wait to share it with them. Thank you Sir Linkalot for this wonderful gift.’The fine detailsEach bundle of 20 words (level 1 to 5) contains two types of test: a multiple choice, to ease them in, that has a couple of gimmicks on the Results page to encourage re-testing and a crossword challenge – a much more robust test as every letter needs to be correct.The annual subscription for a parent is £49.99 and monthly is £6.99.. Schools can buy an annual licence (£2 to £5 per child, bulk-order discount – so schools can team up) to enable them to use it in class on their whiteboards (the browser version is app.sirlinkalot.org).The app (850 App Store ratings, averaging 4.6) is achieving incredible results (case study of 1,400 children), in particular, for those students (children and adults) who find spelling an issue or those whose first language isn’t English.Catch me and Susie in action. Hope you enjoy it – even the dad dancing! (Sir Linkalot highlights reel’) https://www.sirlinkalot.org/"
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Digital Learning

Mnemonics, animation, etymology - and even Dad dancing - help children remember spellings

12 Jun 2020

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      string(5426) "You will never forget how to spell diarrhoea!‘How do you spell?’… It’s a cry many parents came to dread in lockdown, especially those who were home schooling their children and so were cast in the role of expert. It was even more daunting for those parents who rely on predictive text and spellcheckers in their daily life.Sir Linkalot was chosen as the Best Education App at the 2020 Bett Awards. This was partly because the app has so many fans in schools. Oasis Academy Mayfield in Southampton said: ‘We have improved reading in the last 18 months by over 3 years 9 months on chronological age, and spelling is just under that, across our KS3. We are now out of notice to improve and are one of the most improved schools on the South Coast. If your school uses [Sir Linkalot], then it’s in for a treat.’When lockdownwas announced and schools closed, its creator Andy Salmon made his app free forall parents and teachers. It has been a great success with 30,000 new subscribers during thisperiod. BBC Bitesize wants to partner with Sir Linkalot and use some of hiscontent for the Catch-up’ programme that have put together for the autumn term. Links help children remember  spellingsAndy is an ideal English teacher with his enthusiasm and infectious humour but he was in fact a mathematics student at university. He has the sort of brain that absorbs facts and can bring together different bits of knowledge and put this to good use when it came to improving children’s spelling in an entertaining and memorable way.‘I thought ofmy first link in March 1995, when I learned that Columbus was the capital ofOhio,’ he says. ‘I thought of Columbus himself, coming and going on histravels, and saying ‘Oh, hi’ every time he returned. You repeat that, and itstarts to sound like Ohio.’In 2000 herealized that linking could be used for spelling, and he spent the next eightyears developing this idea, travelling the country to deliver lessons, writingbooks, and finally launching the Sir Linkalot app in 2018.What is the secret of his success with tricky spellings? Unlike mostspelling experts, Andy doesn’t focus on phonics. He leaves that to Ruth Miskin CBE,government advisor and founder of the UK’s no 1 phonics programme Read, Write Including.She tuned in to Andy’s daily show at 2pm called Sir Linkalot Time  on SirLinkalot’s Youtube channel. The USA is in the middle of this wordInstead of Look-Cover-Write and Check and other traditional approaches to spelling, Andy uses stories, words within words, animations, a visual approach and lots of toilet humour which children – of all ages! – clearly love. Throughout July, people voted for their favourite links and last month Sir Linkalot went through the Top 20 doing a ‘Link of the day’. It won’t surprise you to read that three of the top five were related to either pee, bum or poo. Toilet humour wins every time Not many people can turn the number two into a toilet but once you have seen the T as a cistern, the w as a bum and o as poo it sticks in the mind. Children’s reactions to the link for ‘Two’When viewerswere invited to vote for their favourite links in July, diarrhoea camein at number 1. Sir Linkalot knows that the tricky bit is in the middle. Mostpeople can manage dia– and the ending –ea Those letters in themiddle are a challenge but the Sir Linkalot animation and mnemonic RunnyRunny Help Oops! does the trick. Some peoplespell interest without the first e because that is how they pronounce itbut once they see those two Es transform into eyes that get bigger and biggeruntil they explode, they won’t make that mistakeagain. It’s a perfect way to illustrate interest. Accommodation tripspeople up with its double consonants so Sir Linkalot illustrates it with twocats chasing two mice around the house.Susie Dent fromCountdown, aka Lady Lexicographer, appears in many of the lessons to give the originof words that have an interesting story to tell. Take the word nature.  This comes from the Latin natura ‘birth,nature, quality’, and links to nativity, innate, neo-natal. The word definitelycomes from the Latin finire to complete and links to finish, finiteand infinite. Biscuit is a hard word to spell but seeing thecu becoming a cup is a great visual prompt and there is also a story: inFrench bis means twice and cuit means cooked. Twice cooked – thatwould be the reason why biscuits are so crisp.Friday at 5 with the familyDuring lockdown Andy could not go into schools sohe started using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to deliver lessons and keep in touch with his followers. Every Friday, he hosts a live AMA session (Ask MeAnything) on his Insta Channelcalled Sir Linkalot Live: Friday at 5 where followers can ask him a question about howto learn any fact (spelling, Maths, World Capitals, Science facts, Historydates…anything). This is not quiz; it is a two-way street as hechallenges his viewers to think up links. The best ones win a badge and the overallwinner is awarded a T-shirt.’ It’s very much a family show,’ says Andy, ‘withthe parents joining in as well as teenagers and the weenies, of course. All youneed to play is an imagination. It’s a fun way to finish the week.’To see howbusy Sir Linkalot and Lady Lexicographer have been during lockdown, take a peekat this: Lockdownwith Sir Linkalot"
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Digital Learning

Sir Linkalot is on a quest to improve children’s spelling in lockdown

20 Oct 2020

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      string(319) "... into the classroom . Staff are also beginning to look at it as an alternative to Zoom and MS Teams for blended learning. The TES Award 2020: Best Use of Technology went to Hospital and Outreach Education AP Academy in Northamptonshire. Led by headteacher Cath Kitchen. They have been using AV1 ..."
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      string(5573) "An AV1 robot means you can be present in class, even when you are absent With  the rise in children’s mental health cases, a little robot caled AV1 is proving to be a steppingstone to getting troubled students  back into the classroom . Staff are also beginning to look at it as an alternative to Zoom and MS Teams for blended learning. The TES Award 2020: Best Use of Technology went to Hospital and Outreach Education AP Academy in Northamptonshire. Led by headteacher Cath Kitchen. They have been using AV1, the little robot,  as a communication channel between children in a hospital bed or isolated at home and their friends in school.TeachingTimes featured the technology in an earlier article and showed how it was being used to maintain continuity of education for children undergoing long-term medical treatment. How it started AV1 was launched by Norwegian company No Isolation in 2016in Oslo and brought together a team of hardware and software developers, plususer experience experts.They created the prototypes using 3-D printers and cardboard and tested everything on children, families and teachers. This is perhaps one reason why there are so many thoughtful features. The child has an app on their phone or tablet that lets them control the robot. AV1 flashes to get the teacher’s attention and its eyes have different coloured LED lights. These are controlled by the user who can indicate if they are happy, confused or need help. It also has a directional microphone and can swivel to face a pupil in class who is speaking. This means that children away from school can play a full part in lessons, learning from classmates, engaging in discussions and participating in group work. The No Isolation charity set up a UK office in 2017 and soon met Cath Kitchen, the headteacher of Hospital and Outreach Education AP Academy. Cath led a successful bid for the Alternative Provision Innovation Fund, a Department for Education initiative, with the aim of improving outcomes for children who require alternative provision.Sending the robotsoutTheprojectstarted in 2018 and is coming to the end of its two year cycle. It is calledthe APIF Telepresence Alliance and has put out 90 robots into 10 settings to seehow successful the No Isolation telepresence robot can be in ‘furthering theeducational progress, attendance and involvement of children affected bylong-term medical and mental health illnesses, while reducing feelings ofloneliness and isolation.’While the final results have not yet been published, theresearch has shown that it is a very useful tool for children with cancer whoare undergoing treatment and have a suppressed immune system and it has raisedthe profile of children with medical needs.Research focused on Improvementin attendance Progressand attainment data Improvementin engagement Howeasy it is to return to school Howeasy it is to remain in school following the return Improvementsin wellbeing and lessening of anxiety, feeling of isolation, and lonelinessFindings in 2020Interim findings haveshown that when an AV1 robot is used in the classroom, attendance ratesdouble.  Attendance of 29.4% before using AV1 rose to 58.4% afterwards.The project also uses a Personal Development Scale, speciallydesigned scale to measure a child’s readiness to reintegrate into school. Itconsists of 80 points overall, and measures areas such as ‘communication withadults’ and ’hopes for the future’. The average score at baseline was 31.7points which has increased on average to 50.2 points.GCSE successOne recipient, Zoe Johnson, was 12 when she was found tohave ME – myalgic encephalomyelitis – also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.This causes total exhaustion and is very disruptive to day to day life. Zoe wasnot expected to get any GCSEs because she had missed so much school, althoughon her better days she worked with an online tutor. She believes AV1 was one of the factors in her success. Forthe last few months, Zoe was ‘in class’ with her former classmates, able to seeand hear their ideas and comments. She came out with five GCSEs and is going onto study History A-level but is looking forward to doing so, ‘with my friends,rather than on my own.’Blended learning in lockdownOther schools have started to use AV1 as part of theirBlended Learning strategy. Queen’s Gate School is an independent school in SouthKensington with around 510 pupils.At the beginning of lockdown some girls were in India, inLos Angeles, in New York. ‘We had girls in different time zones and one A levelstudent had health problems and was self-isolating long-term,’ said MarkCrundwell, Director of Teaching, Learning and Assessment.In the early days of lockdown staff faced challenges. Theyadapted the timetable to provide a two hour break in the middle of the day sostudents weren’t burnt out by too much screen time. School managed to makeclass times as normal as possible and were teaching nine periods a day. Participating in lessonsWhen the school returned in September, staff moved over toblended learning with a WebCam in every single classroom. Teachers and studentswho couldn’t attend in person were logging into the normal timetable with eachteacher having their own zoom login code. This meant that it was easy for girls who were self isolating simply to ‘attend’the classes in a normal way without having to have a separate zoom link foreach lesson. It worked for most students but they were concerned aboutLucy who needed a different solution if she was to be part"
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Special Needs

A Little Robot Friend On The Desk Can Help Troubled Students Back To School

18 Dec 2020

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      string(5101) "Mew Hansiriphan of Shrewsbury School with his winning trophy and certificateThe jury is outwhen it comes to competition. Some believe it can cause aggression and set individualsagainst one another, running against that spirit of cooperation andcollaboration that schools work so hard to foster. Others believe thatcompetition can make children anxious so they don’t focus on the task in handand almost rule themselves out of any contest before it begins. However, at KAZ we like the idea ofcompetition because we are all about improving touch typing speeds andconfidence, helping people build their skills and speed to levels they did notbelieve were possible. So, we looked at ways to make our competition accessibleto all comers.In the beginningThe idea of acompetition started when we interviewed Robert Pattison, principal of Dublin Oak Academy, an internationalboarding school educating boys from the age of 12 to 16. He was keen to findsome touch typing software that would not involve allocating too much time forlessons and practice.The boys learnt thebasics in hours but Mr Pattison wanted to make sure they remained motivated sohe set up an inter-form competition where the typing champions of each classwere pitted against one another. This generated excitement, so much so that hefound boys were neglecting their studies to improve their typing speeds!Obviously, the competition had fired them up.Soon we werehearing a similar story from other schools. Alan Tsui is now AcademicEnrichment Programmed Leader at Willow Brook Primary School Academy in EastLondon. He came across KAZ Type in 2014 when he was working at a Central LondonIndependent Preparatory School: ‘The children I was working with at the timewere very enthused by it, especially being able to challenge each other withtheir typing speeds. Many were also partly motivated by the fact that I had setthem a personal challenge to exceed my typing speed.’  The launch Last Christmas we decided to run a competition for schools across the globe that were using KAZ Type. We have students from countries as far apart as Malaysia and South Africa and we wanted them all to have a fair chance. We launched it in January with the slogan ‘Go online and test your speeds against the best of the best.’ The competition ranfrom January 10th – June 30th, 2020. The student with the highest numberof words per minute would be awarded a KAZ Touch Typing Winner’s Certificateand a City & Guilds licence. The winning school would receive The KAZTouch Typing Trophy 2020, a year’s free subscription to KAZ, as well as pressand social media publicity.The advantages of our competition Schoolscould join in at any timeChildrencould test their speeds at a time and place to suit them – this was very handyas it turned out!Studentscould take the timed test as often as they wished and their best score would besavedAleader board would be published on the KAZ site each month so students couldsee if they were on a par with the highfliersTheresult was to be announced in July so they had five months to enterSchools with a KAZlicence could check up on student progress at any time. This meant thatindividual schools could run their own in-house tournaments and maybe evenpitch staff against students. Levelling the playing field One of the concernswith competitions is that so often it is the same few people who enter and win.But a good competition should be open to all and should offer opportunities forstudents who are not always in the top tier. One of the bigadvantages of KAZ is that there is a version for people with dyslexia and otherneurodiverse conditions. Its special feature ensure dyslexia learners cansucceed with touch typing:Theunique ‘preference screen’ minimises visual disturbancesItsproven Accelerated Learning teaching method using ‘brain balance’Itdevelops ‘muscle memory’ – so spellings become engrained It isspecially formulated so it does not overload the working memoryItbuilds confidence and self-esteemIt took our companytwo years of development, plus advice and support from the Dyslexia ResearchTrust to create the SEN / Dyslexia version which has proved effective forlearners with dyslexia, dyspraxia, dysgraphia, ASD, ADHD and Tourette’s.And the winner is … Mew Hansiriphan ofShrewsbury School was crowned champion, with a score of 65 WPM and 89%accuracy. Touch typing is oneof the activities on offer at all pupils at Shrewsbury as part of the school’sco-curricular societies program. It is very popular with pupils and ischampioned enthusiastically by teacher Karen Mitchell, head of learningsupport.She said: ‘Ourpupils very much enjoyed the challenge of taking part in the KAZ WorldwideTouch Typing Tournament. We were thrilled to be told that the competition had beenwon  by one of our fifth formers (Year 10s).Mew worked extremely hard at improving his touch typing speed and accuracy andhe is to be warmly congratulated for his achievement.’We would like toadd our congratulations too!https://kaz-type.com/"
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Applications and Software

KAZ: Why a little competition is no bad thing

9 Oct 2020