Instructional Strategies and the Role Technology plays in implementing them

Gone are the days of when the teacher stood at the front of the classroom writing on a chalkboard while students bent over their desks writing their spelling words ten times each so they could spell them on their Friday test. Gone are the days of standing up in front of the class, reading a book report that had been carefully written on paper with pen.
Nowdays, instead of being born with a "silver spoon" in their mouth, they are born with ipods and ipads in their hands and they hit the ground running. We must learn their language or become the enemy of the digital natives.
Nowdays, we must look at discussions in the forms of wikis and blogs, and communications as email, texting and skypeing around the world at the touch of a finger. Presentations are no longer listening to the teacher droning on and on, now it has visuals, sound and actions, sometimes even starring the students themselves. Discovery can be done in safety without fear of blowing something up and as long as there is a computer for each student, no one gets left out and students can try more than once because supplies are endless, which is what discovery is all about. Virtual fieldtrips can take every student to places they have never gone and money for the trip and the bus and the gas and eating are no longer an issue where only the rich use to go.
Out with the old, in with the new. The world is changing at a whirlwind speed and if we are going to prepare our students for that world then we must learn how to harness this new technology. We must "boldly go where no man has gone before"(Star Trek) and be not afraid to take that next step.