I have been very impressed by futurlab's paper Social software and learning (2006). It gives a comprehensive overview of the new tools and their likely impact on learning and teaching. The writers to not paint an overly optimistic view, but point to factors that are likely to make the emerging tools so useful for learning.
I particularly like the several mentions of the positive impact of the Web 2.0 technologies, in the main, being freely available and web based, which means that cautious, poverty stricken and very very cautious bureaucrats have limited opportunities to block their use. The dead hand of system-wide planning has been a major player in the slow spread of creative use of the internet.
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