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| Game For A Bit Of Fun? Visit The Bett 2010 Website To celebrate the new central feature called Playful Learning at the world's largest educational technology show, BETT 2010, visitors to the BETT website (www.bettshow.com/bettgame/index.htm) can go back in time in an online game and play the role of 'teacher' in a 1940s classroom! Developed to inject some fun into the BETT website, the game sees the teacher (player) trying and keep their naughty class from cheating in an exam and score points by tapping the pupil's desks with a ruler. The aim of the game is to highlight BETT 2010's strap line, 'learning together through technology', and how the classrooms of today use technology to motivate and inspire children to learn rather than a ruler. Keith Clifford, marketing manager at Emap Connect, says: "As teaching methods evolve, teaching must evolve with it. We want to celebrate how far technology in education and gaming has come and its effect on students' motivation and ability to learn. We are confident that our central feature area for 2010, Playful Learning, will effectively demonstrate this and we hope visitors to the website get as much fun out of the BETT 2010 game as we have had creating it!" The Playful Learning feature area at BETT encompasses a whole class of children from Lampton School in Hounslow playing, learning, challenging, tweeting and provoking BETT visitors to use a diversity of hardware, software, devices and ideas. Like last year, Prof. Stephen Heppell (winner of the 'Outstanding Achievement' award at the 2009 BETT Awards) is once again the brain child behind the central area and hopes to illustrate how effective games-based learning can really be. With survey after survey suggesting our UK schoolchildren may be some of the least happy in Europe, he believes that this could be down to secondary age children mourning the loss of play from their primary years. Games can jumpstart a whole cultural change in school so that 'being smart is cool', and finally, in 2010, ICT and gaming is bringing back playfulness and engagement in schools. The BETT game has been developed by the BETT 2010 marketing team in conjunction with design agency MCM Net. Players can register their scores on the leader board, or send to a friend for them to enjoy. BETT 2010 is free to attend and runs from Wednesday 13 to Saturday 16 January 2010. write your comments about the article :: © 2009 Exhibition News :: home page |