Critical literacy is like a close reading. You are taking a close look at the text and learning to apply the ideas to the final product. Some ideas that I have been thinking about for a while are simple yet easy to implement into the classroom. Today it is so easy for students to get their hands on some sort of technological device. I know as an English teacher I will most likely at one point in time teach Romeo and Juliet, it's just a given. I idea that I had for this is having the students pair up and text each other a passage from Romeo and Juliet, but put it in their speech. I think this will help them learn to understand the language of Romeo and Juliet plus it will be something that students can relate to :-). Another subject that students struggle with is poetry. I would like students to write their own poem and somehow make a video out of it. I think it would be fun for students to make a video and hopefully it will teach them that poetry is not all that boring. There are so many ideas out there that we can use to incorporate multimedia into old literacy and make it both fun and informational.

For the digital text and reflection I tried the Glogster. What I really like about the app is that it is multi-functional. I can use it for both History and English. Students can make a poster or a short video for the book that they are reading and add pictures, text, audios from a movie version, or voice recordings. This could be used as their final report on a book. For History students can create posters for the time frame I'm teaching them or even a timeline. I think there are many applications that I can use with Glogster. The one thing that I had a hard time doing was adding text. I still haven't figured it out, but it may just be a bug in the app or me. I am going to have my kids (yep) play around with it and see if they can figure it out. A big thing that I learned from the readings is that students will progress with or with out us in the technological age, we can either help them or get out of the way. I really am not that old yet when I see the things my kids do with the technology I feel ancient. My kids have so many games on their iPods and when I try to play them they get frustrated with me and take the device away. I want to know how the game are played and to make sure they are suitable for their ages. I really had a hard time with the fact that kids spend 7.5 hours a day on some sort of device on the web. I know that my kids, while at home, are not on the web. I have very strict rules about the time spent on their Ipods. I don't believe it is healthy for kids to be sitting on their rear ends for hours at a time. BUT while they're at school I don't have a say. I think as long as the teachers are making the most of the technology while at school my kids are better off. My oldest is in Jr. High and his English teacher has the students going on a website called Utah Compose. I took a look at it and really liked the idea behind it. The students can write an essay and it will automatically correct their paper. It will tell them where they can improve their writing skills and where they need to fix grammatical mistakes. I really like this website and it does get students ready for the Sage test as well. I hope that I can keep technology in my class so that students don't leave ME behind, I want to help them advance in life not keep them behind.