My favorite things about Sweden are herring,
midnight sun, cross country skiing and the teachers.
Each year in January we attend a conference
called BETT, which is not just the largest education technology trade show in
Britain, but all of Europe. And one of my favorite things about BETT is the
Swedish teachers, almost 4,000 of them, who travel to warm winter London to see
our products.
Our European Sales Manager, Anders Wik, is
from Gothenburg and with “Gotteborg Humor” entertains the Swedish visitors to
our trade show booth with tales about our products. It’s good fun and by the
end of the 4-day exposition I’ve heard his
 |
Anders setting up the HoverCam booth
at BETT in the UK, January 2013.
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spiel so many times I’m
speaking Swedish.
This week, we will launch the HoverCam Mini 5,
the world’s smallest document camera, in Sweden at SETT, Scandinavia’s largest education
technology conference.
SETT is an acronym for Scandinavian Educational
Technology Transformation. This is the 2nd year for the conference,
which attracted 4,500 teachers, ICT (Interactive Communications Technology)
instructors and school administrators from 3 countries last year.
The goals for the conference are to introduce
new digital technologies to the classroom to increase
student achievement.
According to HoverCam’s Swedish resellers,
the Mini is ideal for teachers who instruct at multiple schools, because it
weighs less than 250 grams. The HoverCam Mini allows instructors to scan paper
documents, and also to capture images with the camera that can be shown on interactive
whiteboards in class.
“Many teachers are using the HoverCam to
create instructional videos,” says Anders.
The HoverCam Mini 5 will be displayed at SETT
by the Swedish instructional technology integrators AV Huset and ITM, which
will highlight how HoverCam can be used by teachers as an instructional
technology tool. (One of the highlights of BETT – the UK show – is meeting up
with AV Huset and ITM on the streets of London for a concert, samplings of
British ale and good stories.)
HoverCam’s products will also be showcased by
two companies highlighting the HoverCam’s capability to work with OCR (optical
character recognition) software, ICAP and Svensk Talteknologi. OCR software allows text from book pages scanned
with the HoverCam to be converted from text to speech, which is useful for
students with visual impairments. The scan quality of the HoverCam works well
with OCR software.
“The HoverCam is user friendly,” says Anders.
“The software is in Swedish and easy to install since it is embedded in the
unit,” he said. HoverCam products appeal to teachers in Sweden, Norway and
Denmark because of the good video quality, ergonomic design and
multi-functionality. “Each HoverCam is also a scanner and a video recorder,”
says Anders, “And it’s affordable for schools.”
HoverCam products were first introduced to
North America in 2010, where 100,000 HoverCam units have been installed in schools.
We began working with Anders and exporting HoverCams to Sweden in May, 2011.
This is how I sound after speaking Swedish for 4 days. (Full disclosure: I hired a Swede to play the part of me in the video.)
For additional information about the HoverCam in
Sweden, please visit the company’s Swedish website www.thehovercam.se For additional information about the SETT Conference, which runs April 17 – 18 please visit www.settdagarna.se/en For additional
information about HoverCam products in North America please visit www.thehovercam.com or email contact@thehovercam.com
