In the early years classrooms of tomorrow, many of the new tools in use will be geared towards phonics, whiteboards and the web. What you might be surprised to find is just how comfortingly familiar many will seem.
Take Sherston's Polka Dot Park (£39.95 for single user), a program about the growth of plants, animals and humans that includes the staple activity of planting a seed and watching it grow. Sherston has also put a new spin on another well-established activity with Percy Parker (£39.95 for user in school, £19.95 for home use) who looks very much like a 1970s glam rocker as he and his band lead everyone in singing their times tables from the interactive whiteboard. The music has been created by UK pop record producer Andrew Holdsworth.
If you like combining maths and singing and want more curriculum spread, have a look at Farmer Pete and Friends (£47 for the whiteboard) from Numberfun. This was designed for the whole class to share, with lively songs and animations built around different themes. Although it won't be at Bett, you can get a sample from the website.
And when they're not belting out rhythmic arithmetic your assembled throng will find the whiteboard is equally useful for sounding out synchronised synthetic phonics. Last year Promethean hosted the launch of the Speed Sounds (£299 set of three CD-roms) materials from Readwrite Inc (Ruth Miskin's acclaimed work in this field) exclusively for Promethean boards. Now they have become available for all.
Similar, though visually more game-like, is Fast Phonics First from Harcourt (£225 site licence), which is based on work in Clackmannanshire that started the recent resurgence of synthetic phonics. Like any good teaching system it combines aural, visual and kinaesthetic approaches to get the learning across. As does Big Cat Phonics (Collins Education £146.88 CD-rom) which is also advertised for whiteboards but would probably work just as well for small groups or individuals to run through the various sounds and the several games.
Less structured, although well regarded as a tool for developing literacy, is Clicker 5, which celebrates the new year with the launch of Clicker Paint (from Crick Software - £49 single licence). Although this can work on its own as an easily recognisable painting program, its strength is in working with an open Clicker grid. In most of its incarnations so far this software has been known for providing pictures to go with the words - now users can instantly create their own to illustrate their words. From drawing the pictures for their own talking books, to following a sequence of instructions or collaborating on a sorting grid, this adds another dimension to a pretty powerful program. It can make challenging demands on users when creating resources, but is the sort of program you can get started with very quickly.
A similar claim can be made for Just2easy (from £49 for up to 100 users), an online document processor that will create colourful documents, including web-pages, cards and banners, in moments. It comes from the people who first created the Textease word processor, so it has that easy feel - you place the text where you want it then stretch the box to make it bigger, or spin it to give it a tilt. The tools include a slider for choosing colours, with fine adjustments made with a subordinate one, and an automatic colour picker to help with matching. As every document created has its own web address they can be shown off elsewhere, worked on outside class, or be shown to relatives in far-off places simply by sending a link.
2Simple, which also aims for creativity, is showing Maths City (£39 single user), which has a similar approach to the well-established Simple City (£39 single user). Children are given activities to role-play, many based on real-life situations such as measuring shoes in a shoe shop, and all supported by video clips, with three levels of difficulty.
Another new product is 2Paintapicture (£39 single user) which builds on the tools from 2Paint and 2Publish. These include symmetry and repeating patterns but now let pupils to experiment with pointillism or acrylics.
Finally, there is a strong visual feel to new programs for creating mindmaps. Thinking with Pictures from Logotron (£49 single user) allows pupils to use images or symbols instead of words to express their ideas. They can either drag and drop them from the task pane at the side, or type a word into a bubble and see what the software offers. Each arm is a different colour, with sub-groups coming off it, and each one can be replayed to show how the ideas have built up. It is all supported by computer-generated speech, making this a very inclusive way to get thoughts organised.
Crick Software: www.cricksoft.com (stand F40)
Harcourt: www.harcourt.co.uk (B40)
Just2easy: http://j2e.com (Q26)
Logotron: www.logo.com (F26)
Promethean: www.mypromethean.com (K30)
Sherston: www2.sherston.com (D65)
2Simple: www.2simple.com (F59)