We arrived at the Excel in style - in a cable car!
Following the Bett Awards from Wednesday night, we were overjoyed for Learning by Questions who won Innovator of the Year, Maths-Whizz with the Collaboration with a School award, and Pobble for best classroom aid for learning, teaching and assessment 2018! Well done!
We visited the Learning by Questions stand to congratulate Alan Walker and the team, and managed to catch the app in action. Peter Van Der Schans, network engineer for Learning by Questions, shared his experience when first seeing the app being used in a classroom, stating he was amazed at “how immersed the pupils were” and how they “don’t want the lesson to end!”. Check out the Learning by Questions profile on Edtech Impact.
From the Solutions Den we tuned into Tom Able-Green’s session “Implementing Technology is Easy - Said No-One Ever”, and managed to catch up with Tom following his talk. He discussed how implementing technology into a school needs to be an open conversation between decision makers, and how budgeting for technology must include the cost of CPD for staff - as “If you never improve, best practice becomes malpractice”.
Meanwhile, Michael had a fantastic meeting with Lord Agnew, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the School System. Lord Agnew stated that he is "delighted to see Edtech Impact hit the market", and "we [Department for Education] need to throw our weight behind this". We couldn't be more thrilled! More on this to follow.
In the wind down to the evening, the Innovate My School team enjoyed a cocktail making session with Business France - fantastique! The message of supporting teachers with technology implementation very much carried through to Day 2, as the hype for Edtech Impact exploded, and the Innovate My School team brought their knowledge and experience to the show floor.