Another BETT show means another BETT awards. Last year’s black-tie event is replaced with a more low-key ceremony on January 9, but the quality of nominees remains high. Late last year 15 judges agreed on the shortlists for 12 of the 15 categories and teaching professionals had the final say on the winners.

The online learning resource category is split into two - free and subscription services. For free, five websites will fight it out: www.crete-ou.orgmovingwords from the Open University; www.rn-maths.co.uk from the Royal Navy and Royal Marines; www.counton.org - a continuation of Maths Year 2000; www.holnet.org.uk by the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists; and www.barnardos.org.uk futurecitizens, developed by Educational Communications.

The subscription section has four nominees:Granada Learning’s Primary Zone, Proquest Learning: History and Literature, Learn.co.uk’s secondary topical lessons and finally CR-ed online content family from Paradigm ICT.

The educational software category is split into primary and secondary, with 2Simple Toolkit, Granada Learning’s Young Writers’ Workshop, RM’s Easiteach Maths and Flowol 2 Primary by Data Harvest up for the primary award. The secondary nominations are: President for a Day by Damaris Publishing, Secrets from Granada, Flowol 2 Secondary, Heinemann’s ICT Activities in History and 4Learning’s Macbeth CD-Rom.

The primary software tools section is a contest between Textease Studio, Sherston’s Junior Multimedia Lab, 2Simple’s Infant Video Toolkit and Fresco by Blackcat, which won the category last year for Numbers, Words and Pictures. Just two products are nominated in the secondary software tools section: Apple’s iDVD and Imperata 4.0 from Teleste Educational.

A new category this year is further education, in which Your Army CD-Rom and Print and Scan from Trax UK will vie for the inaugural award.

There is healthier competition in the primary ICT hardware section, with three whiteboard products, Promethean’s ACTIVboard Plus, Mimio Classroom and the Smart Interactive Whiteboard are up against Apple’s iBook wireless mobile classroom and DCP Microdevelopments’ Log IT Explorer. The first four products are also nominated in the secondary category, along with Freedom 2 Teach from Imparo. Apple won last year for its AirPort.

The Support for ICT award will go to either Semerc’s Information Service, CYNNAL for its NOF ICT training, Bullet Point Training and Support or the IT Learning Exchange.

Special educational needs software has five nominees: IEP Writer 2 from Learnhow, Crick Software’s Find Out and Write About series, Assessability from Semerc (last year’s category winner), Co:Writer Smart Applet by Don Johnston Special Needs, and Mastering Memory from CALSC.

A variety of products have been nominated for the school management solution award: Viglen’s ClassLink 2000, Truancy Call from Truancy Call Ltd, New Literacy and Numeracy Complete Online CD-Rom, IEP Writer 2 once more and finally www.everythingeducation.org

The winners will be posted after January 10 at www.besanet.org.uk