By John Galvin,Vice President, Sales and Marketing Group, General Manager, Intel Education
What a week it's been for the Intel education team! I spent an incredibly exciting few days in London at the BETT education show, meeting customers and partners and having captivating discussions about how we can personalise education to improve students’ success. The BETT show is now one of the largest technology shows for educators anywhere in the world and attracted over 35,000 visitors. During the event, we invited attendees to experience our entire range of education solutions, which showcase how the education basics of the 3R's (Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic) can be enhanced by the use of real time data on students’ progress in an immersive classroom environment. Along with 3R’s, Intel we also reiterated that the basics are expanding to coding and cyber wellness as key foundation needs for education.
BETT also provided a great platform to launch our Intel Education Content Access Point. This new, easy to use product is designed to store, manage and distribute digital content. It was developed by our team as a response to customer feedback and will solve a real problem for schools in areas of low, no or intermittent connectivity. Based on my discussions with customers and partners and from walking around the show it became clear to me that with the technology we have available today the time has come for us to deliver on the promise of 1:1 computing in education. Meaning education can be truly personal!
Big Data was a dominant show theme, especially its use in collating, aggregating and analysing student data to personalise education and tailor pedagogy, curriculum and learning environments to meet the needs of individual students. Other prevalent themes included cloud and its application in learning management systems (LMS), gamification and its ability to tap into the competitive side of learners and Coding for Kids - which is of particular relevance in the UK now that coding is a compulsory part of the school curriculum.
BETT also provided us with an opportunity to meet with peers and partners to share insights on Intel’s education strategy. In addition to speaking to representatives from partners including DELL, Google, Lego, HP and Lenovo, Intel’s Eileen Lento also organised a successful CIO Summit. The session included a thought provoking debate with Gordon Graylish, Intel Vice President and Ron Chandler, former Los Angeles Unified School District CIO, where they discussed the opportunities and challenges that IT managers face when making learning more personal. Intel recognises that in order to support a change, the role of a school’s IT department will need to evolve. Instead of predominantly supporting the school’s technical infrastructure and device management, IT decision makers will need to take on a CIO role and become enablers of learning who help staff and students come to terms with new technology.
I left the week extremely reassured that we are on the right path in education and that Intel has arrived as major player in the education ecosystem. In fact one customer testimonial stated Intel Education is ‘raising the bar for how a technology player in education should address its audience’. Thank you all for your hard work during BETT week and here’s to great execution and continued thought leadership in education in 2015.
Read more on Intel's presence at BETT 2015 here.