This paper is about the classroom use of digital literacies. It describes using a hypermedia-authoring program with middle-years students at an Australian secondary school. Classroom environments were created in which collaborative and innovative group work built on technical facilities and expertise developed by students outside of school. The teaching of nonlinear hypermedia stories and instruction in software use to create such stories are represented as a case study. The author argues that the three-part model for understanding literacy--as having an operational, a cultural and a critical dimension--can be an effective way to deal with the occasionally intimidating experience of digital literacies in education.