The ability to analyze and evaluate online sources for credibility continues to be a universal concern. In a 2006 study by the University of Connecticut, seventh graders lacked the ability to discredit a hoax website about a tree octopus. Using the same website in this qualitative study, 68 elementary students shared rationales about the source's authenticity during an exploration of reliability reasoning. Student responses provided insight into the application of web literacy skills and highlighted a need for increased instructional emphasis on critical thinking and explicit modeling of reliability reasoning during online searches.

The struggling second and third graders in this mixed methods study increased their reading comprehension after a 10‐week Readers Theatre podcasting project. Podcasting made the students aware of a wider audience, which enhanced the authenticity and social nature of the strategy, and made their performances permanent so they could be stored and conveniently retrieved for later listening and evaluation. Finally, students discussed their podcasts using visual vocabulary such as “watch,” “show,” “look good,” and “show my voice,” uncovering the concept of audio as a visual medium. Since visualization is a critical strategy used by skilled readers, podcasting has the potential to strengthen this aspect of Readers Theatre.

This study explores the perspectives of students, teachers and parents to evaluate the use of digital portfolios as an additional way to capture and enhance the learning of elementary students in a public school setting and as an opportunity to communicate this learning to parents. The research questions address four problems: complex assessment of learning, parental participation, and student and teacher satisfaction and the impact of the portfolio on teaching methods. Particularly, we are interested in the subjective satisfaction of students, teachers and parents in the portfolio development process. We are also interested in whether students learn to reflect constructively on their work, whether teachers have changed their teaching methods and whether parents believe the portfolio was used or could be used for enhanced communications.

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In this article, the authors describe Web 2.0 as tools that have increased the urgency for students' and teachers' critical literacy skills and have also participated in the implementation of critical literacy. The authors define and position both Web 2.0 and critical literacy. Further, students' and teachers' power dynamics within both critical literacy and Web 2.0 are explored. Examples of combining Web 2.0 and critical literacy illuminate the critical literacy principles in the context of schools.The new functionality of Web 2.0 has opened many possibilities for learning and collaboration as well as new challenges. In this article, we discuss how Web 2.0 elevates one such theory, critical literacy. With the rate of information increasing by 5 exabytes per year (one exabyte = one billion gigabytes; School of Information Management Systems, 2000), the need to understand the validity, reliability, and motives of the sources of information is more crucial than ever. Critical literacy is the thinking process involved when texts are read and considered from a critical stance,