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Many young people use the interactive web, or Web 2.0, in their everyday lives, primarily for socialising and entertainment. Particularly empowering to learning are abilities to produce content on the world wide web, and a critical, reflective, metacognitive approach to using the web. In the face of a growing 'participation divide' between youth who have opportunities to engage in these higher order participatory and reflective literacies and those with fewer opportunities, there is an urgent need for teachers to expand literacy instruction. This article offers examples of classroom practices that draw on social elements of Web 2.0 that are favoured by youth to support less practised usages required for learning. Specifically, we describe ways of using new literacies and new forms of texts for locating and critically examining information, and ways of sharing and building knowledge within the participatory and creative landscape of Web 2.0.

There are many Web 2.0 tools that can be used to enhance teaching and learning in the classroom. It is important to understand that we are using all these tools to practise basic literacy skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) and engage and motivate students. You may need to register to use the tool but it is free and if you use the same email address and password for all registrations it's simple. Please try them and let us know how you went by commenting. Your feedback will help us all.

Lots of digital storytelling tools in this site

"Integrating Technology into the Classroom using Instructional Strategies based on the research from: Classroom Instruction that Works by Robert J. Marzano, Debra J. Pickering, Jane E. Pollock"

"This section is for teachers. It is a resource that will provide practical suggestions on how to integrate video production into the curriculum. This section will also explore the world of media literacy."

"Engage your students in online literacy learning with these interactive tools that help them accomplish a variety of goals-from organizing their thoughts to learning about language-all while having fun."

'Ideas to Inspire' is a collection of Google Docs presentations, which offer a large number of ideas for engaging lesson activities in a range of curriculum areas.