BETT 2012 was a busy, buzzy event. Apart from all of the exhibitors showing their latest technologies and resources there were lots of other activites also taking place including BETT Radio.

A wonderful advocate of radio in schools, Russell Prue has been broadcasting BETT Radio shows for the last few months, interviewing everyone involved in the world of educational ICT. Russell also broadcast BETT Radio live throughout the whole four days of the exhibition, using his Anderton Tiger Desktop. I had the excitement of being interviewed by Russell, live on BETT Radio on the Saturday morning. Radio is a wonderful medium for children and young people to use. For many children and young people, writing is a barrier to expressing their ideas and points of view. Radio removes this barrier and many children find their voice and are motivated to use language creatively via the spoken word. Russell’s enthusiasm for radio is boundless and his Anderton Tiger Desktop, portable school radio is really easy to use and the cheapest solution available for use in schools. If you’d like to know more about using radio equipment in your school, then visit Russell’s website at http://www.andertontiger.com/Desktop/. Watch out also for my blog about children’s radio programmes and where to find them.

It was a pleasure to meet teachers and staff and hear all about the different ways they are using StoryPhones including… Washwood Primary who make photo books and record the audio track to accompany them. Warren Mead Infants school use their StoryPhones for guided reading sessions and the British Council school in Madrid have eighteen StoryPhones systems in their school and use them to support their children’s English language learning.

We met a great number of International visitors from countries such as Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Brazil, Australia, Singapore, Israel, France, Spain. BETT 2012 was a truely international event. None of them had seen anything like StoryPhones before and we had great fun demonstrating our MP3 systems.

We were able to set up a mini classroom area and were really pleased to be able to use a wonderful piece of role play equipment provided by Rokka Play. We met the lovely people at Rokka Play last year and I was immediately attracted to their Rokka and Cornish Fishing boat. This is such a versitile toy, it can be a rocker, a table or a fishing boat. You can also buy extra pieces of kit to convert it to a kitchen or puppet theatre. I blogged about it last year and now I’ve had a chance to have a hands on experience, I still love it and think it would be a popular addition to any setting. The Rokka allowed us to demonstrate how to integrate audio into a role play area. We uploaded a story based around the sea and environmental sounds from the seaside onto a Headset. If you would like to find out more about Rokka, their website is http://www.rokkaplay.com/

Annoucing new titles in the BookShelf Download Store

Jolly Phonics for Jolly Listening!

BETT was a fantastic opportunity to announce the latest additon to our download store. There are now have over 630 titles in our download store, well over 3000 individual tracks and growning by the minute. We were particularly delighted to tell everyone that the Jolly Songs are now available to download. Jolly Phonics is an International established synthetic phonics programme used through out the UK in many schools to teach children how to read. You can now download the Jolly Songs and Spoken Guide from the BookShelf download store.

Our distributer in the Netherlands, Heutink is hosting a seminar day at Apeldoorn for 600 teachers. Along side the seminars and talks, the Dutch teachers have the opportunity to attend an exhibition of products available from Heutink’s catalogue. Storyphones has received a wonderful response from all of the dutch teachers. They were very impressed that there were ‘no wires to chew’ and thought the whole concept was amazing. It’s been very interesting to meet teachers from a different country and to find out about their approach to education. It seems that everyone’s concerns are similar regardless of which country you teach in and speaking and listening skills are definately high on the agenda.

7th and 8th October, Event City, Manchester

We will be demonstrating our StoryPhones systems and Little Listeners and chatting enthusiastically about audio resources and how they can support your children’s communication development. We also have some wonderful new language resources in our download store. When you visit our stand you can find out about the show discounts and enter our prize draw to win one of our award winning loud speaking MP3 players.

Childcare Expo, Coventry

This was the first time we had attended the Childcare Expo and it gave us a chance to meet lot people involved in childminding and childcare. Everyone we met impresed us with their dedication to the care and education of young children and were keen to find out about new ways they could support the learning and development of the children in their care.

We caught up with our old friends at Playscope, Rokkaplay, Speak Clearly and The Sweetcounter. We also liked the software Medilert have developed to help practitioners keep track of medicines.

Scottish Learning Festival, Glasgow

We were delighted to meet lots of nurseries and schools who have been using their StoryPhones systems for quite a while now. One nursery are using their system to develop their children’s communication skills by creating treasure hunts and following the clues. We met one teacher from a Junior school who uses StoryPhones to encourage children’s love of stories. She finds that the children like to listen to the stories and chat about them with their friends afterwards. She said “It really encourages their love of stories”.

It was also a chance to catch up with old friends again. We have known Sticky Kids since we began StoryPhones and they were one of the first content providers to make their songs available in our download store. Sticky Kids have produced a wonderful set of songs ready for the 2012 Olympics. Their new album, ‘Go for Gold’ was a sell out at the Scottish Learning Festival.

We are out and about again in September.

A chance to meet Eleanor Johnson, creator of StoryPhones

StoryPhones was created and developed by Eleanor Johnson, an Early Years teacher . Eleanor has a boundless enthusiasm for the use of audio resources to support children’s learning. Eleanor will be attending both events. If you would like to meet her and find out more about the creative ways you can use audio to support your children’s communication skills, phonological awareness, early reading skills and much more , then please come along to our stand, we’ll look forward to meeting you.

The Listening Environment

Children’s speaking and listening skills are a high priority for everyone involved in a child’s learning. A very recent survey published by The National Literacy Trust and Nursery World showed that 100% of parents felt that speaking and listening were important. Come along to our stands to pick up ideas and tips for ways to create a listening environment and creative ways of using listening activities.

Childcare Expo, Ricoh Arena, Coventry Stand B37

16th and 17th September 2011

StoryPhones is exhibiting for the first time at the Childcare Expo show in Coventry and we are so pleased to have the opportunity to be there. The Childcare Expo is an exciting event for everyone in the childcare sector. The event offers seminars and discussions covering all aspects of children’s education and development and two zones for you to explore outdoor learning and play. Come along to our stand to enter our prize draw and find out about our special show offers.

Childcare Expo Blog – Eleanor is contributing to the Childcare Expo blog. You can read her first entry about raising the awareness of children’s  language  and communication development by clicking here.

Teach Nursery Magazine – Teach Nursery will be handing out free copies of their September issue. You can read Eleanor’s article about listening and attention inside.

The Scottish Learning Festival, SECC, Glasgow Stand L22

21st and 22nd September 2011

This will be our fourth visit to the Scottish Learning Festival. The journey north is always beautiful and we always receive a warm welcome. This year we are setting up our listening enviroment display. Please come along to our stand, we love meeting our visitors and chatting. We will be running our prize draw again and have some wonderful show offers.

Would you like to find out how a nursery in Glasgow is using their StoryPhones? Please click here to read all about Cairellot Nursery and how creative their practioners are when it comes to using StoryPhones.

Finally … we have been short listed for a prestigious Nursery World Award. Judging takes place on the 30th September.  Fingers crossed and watch this space!

StoryPhones has been shortlisted for a Nursery World Award.  Our innovative MP3 audio system has been shortlisted in the Three to fives – tried and tested favourite category.

We are delighted to be on this shortlist. We are proud of StoryPhones and to be judged by well known experts and professionals from across the Early Years sector makes this a significant achievement for us.

We would also like to thank all of the schools and nurseries who supported our entry. It is the enthusiasm and creativity of practitioners  and children who make StoryPhones such a  successful resource.

The judging takes place on Friday 30th September, so we will be keeping our fingers crossed until then.

I will be tweeting during the next few days to share some of the interesting ideas and thoughts I have come across. You can follow our tweets via our website or follow us on twitter at @storyphones.

We started in Stratford Upon Avon at the National Primary Head Teachers Annual Conference. As always, we had a great deal of interest in StoryPhones, met lots of friendly people and had the chance to walk around Stratford and visit Shakespeare’s birthplace.

The link with Shakespeare and StoryPhones may be a bit tenuous. However, Shakespeare used words and spoken language to tell his stories and this is the core of StoryPhones, using spoken word and language to tell a story. I am sure Shakespeare, not just a play write but also a business man would have made great use of modern technology!

Next, we headed for Bournemouth and the Nursery Show, our stand had a wonderful view of the sea and the rain lashed beach! Meeting lots of visitors to our stand and chatting to them always sparks off ideas. As the result of this, we are putting together a pack of posters and leaflets to help with fund raising efforts, and some special offers to go with it. We’ll post more details later.

Monday, we were in York, attending the National Literacy Trust’s ‘Talk For Writing’ conference. This was held at the National Railway Museum, and we had lunch among the engines! The conference was led by Pie Corbett. The whole day was packed with brilliant ideas and ways of helping our children to become creative, effective writers. If you ever have the opportunity to attend, it is well worth it.

Today, June 24th, we are attending the NGFL conference in Newcastle Upon Tyne finding out about the ways technology can support children’s learning. How about making an audio slide show using audio and still images to tell a story. More thoughts about this idea later.

National Primary Headteachers’ Annual Conference 8th and 9th June 2011

The Holiday Inn, Stratford Upon Avon

We are exhibiting at the Primary Headteachers Conference in Stratford. If you are attending, we will be delighted to meet with you and demonstrate our award winning MP3 audio systems. We will have our classroom displays with us and lots of ideas about different ways to use digital audio in the classroom.

The Nursery Show, Bournemouth International Centre, 17th – 18th June 2011

Visit us on Stand S39

We are returning to the Nursery Show this year and looking forward to meeting everyone on our stand. We will be demonstrating our award winning StoryPhones MP3 players and Little Listeners, our loud speaking MP3 players. You can also find out about the wide range of audio downloads available in the Bookshelf download store..

The importance of listening and communication skills has been highlighted by the recent Bercow Report and the Year of Communication’s ‘Hello’ Campaign. StoryPhones will help you to support and encourage your children’s listening and communication skills. Vistors to our stand will be able to chat to our experts and find out about using digital audio and MP3 players in your nurseries, preschools and homes.