Two packages for the 7-12 age range - Real Victorians and Childrensatlas.com - are typical. Both begin with a book and CD base, but depend upon a Web link to reveal their full potential. The topic coverage is mainstream, the approach and activities appear nothing radical, but it is the Web link that takes the child further. Coming from Tag Learning and Two-Can respectively, these should be good.

For younger students, packages like these may serve as a first introduction to the Web as a learning tool, a concept that will be invaluable when it comes to later course and project work.

In both these instances the learning can be said to start with the book. In the case of SCETNet for History, targeted at 16+ (largely Scottish) students, the publishers use the CD as the sole launch pad for Web exploration. The CD has been sent free to schools but is now also available for license purchase. Everybody seems to love it. Again the virtually limitless possibilities of the Web are used to good effect.

Channel 4, through 4 Learning, are building in the opposite direction. Homework High, covering all ages from 5-18, has its “ask a teacher” website. The student with the problem finds the subject area and age range and has two options: look at the bank of existing answers or ask a new question; the answer comes within a day or two and is added to the “bank”. This up-and-running resource already has a large following. Teachers can raid it for notes. Next year, and here I have to declare a small personal interest, books and CDs will be added. They look good in the planning stage.

Assuming your Web connection has withstood the above barrage it may be time to move on to Living Library, another great Web-only resource ideal for the 7-12 age range. If you get a chance to go to BETT, do use the samples; if you’re not going, there is enough preview available, before you subscribe, to give a very good flavour. Highly recommended. The perfect project resource, encouraging a bit of cut-and-paste and a bit of real thought.

Finally on the Web-only theme, and again for the lower age range, Ordnance Survey is presenting Our Favourite Places at BETT. The good news is that it’s free to use, encourages a great deal of interactivity (you log on and post your news about “favourite places” and it links with the rest of the high-quality OS resource). The bad news? It’s not quite ready yet, and it’s previews only for now.

And if geography is your thing, Aegis 3 will be launched in full. This CD-based geographic information system, targeted at the 11-18 age range, should develop into a leading tool for the secondary school geography teacher, in essence making that vital link between map and data. A few words could not do this justice; look at the website or visit the stand.

“Is there anybody who hasn’t heard of us?” asks Espresso CEO Lewis Bronze. Well, maybe, but not every school possesses the Espresso package. Perhaps this is the year to invest in the “box” and open yourself up to downloads of video clips and other data. The latest offering is 20th Century Archive, for key stage 2 history. Clips from Hitler to Hiroshima. There’s talk of a Harry Potter package and the backlist is strong. Worth a look.

Moving away from the immediately relevant and possibly affordable, to the realms of the wish list, why not have a look at Trax’s offering of Print amp; Scan software. I haven’t seen it but it sounds fantastic. Create your questionnaires (every humanities teacher’s stock in trade), scan in the responses, get automatically collated results. Magic. And in the same “haven’t seen it but ...” area are the video conferencing ideas from Tulip. This could make teacher shortages a thing of the past!

If ICT and BETT all become too much just refresh yourself with a good lecture. Professor Heppell’s contribution, Creative Children in a Digital Age, promises an exploration of learning without limits. And it’s on Saturday morning.

Graham Hart is an ex-teacher, writer and managing director of Hart McLeod, the educational resource packaging company