In the past few years, Joliet West has been trying to incorporate technology between students and faculty into the curriculum more by featuring laptops for students, JtLearn and teachers using Twitter. Freshmen and sophomores have been given laptops they can use on and off campus to rid the trouble of students not being able to get a hold of computers for school assignments. Using these laptops, these students are better prepared for our future as we take a turn from the written world and towards technology. With this advantage, students are able to contact their teachers from home for more help or feedback on their work, this keeps school more personal and focused on the needs of the students to help them succeed.

JtLearn is a new component that has debuted in recent years. It offers an online site for class discussion and a calendar that explains which assignments are due in class and test dates, also on JtLearn, you can submit papers straight to your teachers and even use this website to navigate to your school email and also the Home Access Center to check your grades.

Teachers have started using Twitter to also connect to their students in an easier way, as many students already have twitters they are active on. Teachers using Twitter has proven to be very successful as teachers can monitor their students online activity and readily be available on a website that is very easy to use. Also, twitter could be used for projects according to the class subject, exposing students to social media websites as well as more technology, readying them for their future where the world will be very internet based, much more than it is today.

With this large expanse of technologic advances our school has gotten, there also come the technical difficulties. Throughout the first couple weeks of school, many students made their way down to the help desks, asking for log in information to connect to the schools wifi. The pros certainly outweigh the cons with the new advance in technology at Joliet West, meaning that these new components in the curriculum are here to stay.