Our Students Living in the Digital World

I find the Standards to be an excellent resource as well as being very helpful guide-lines when trying to incorporate technilogical lessons in the classroom. For me, the standards are a similar tool as the Maine Learning Results, when it comes to creating meaningful assessments and lesson plans.
The reality is that my future students are from the new digital, technilogical, and global world. Students need to learn the necessary skills for their future success, and I need to keep students engaged when implementing lessons. From the many ideas and lessons I was exposed to during my purusing of the NETS info, I found an abundance of great ideas to use in the classroom.
Epals sounds like a great "Brave New World" way of having students express their ideas and thoughts with epals from around the world. At the same time, students can learn much from communicating with people from different cultures. I believe that when a student is writing for an authentic audience then that student's writing will take on more meaning. Also having students journal on blogs and share information on blogging sites is a writing tool that can be utilized in a variety of ways that would hit on both the NETS and the MLRS.
It seems to me that along with podcasts, imovies, and digital presentations the possibilities are endless.
Yet a teacher has to know and understand how his or her students learn best in order to implement the most worthwhile technilogical lessons within the classroom. Much also has to do with a teacher's access to these tools. But the time for accomplishing these feats is now, as our students are living in the "New Digital World!"