Living without technology is almost impossible these days, and even though it comes with problems, when it works, it can be a student’s best friend. When it doesn’t work, it can the worst enemy.

Technology specialist Terry Wickson said the more teachers use technology, the better prepared the students will be.

“It’s important for students to be able to use technology,” Wickson said. “Most job applications are online. Even at McDonald’s they use computers.”

Junior Maggie Savage said technology is helpful for all classes.

“Technology helps with research papers,” Savage said. “You can get information a lot easier with the Internet.”

Technology is used throughout classrooms to help students better understand assignments and lessons.

“I think technology is interactive and engaging for students,” science teacher Danielle Sims said. “It allows research and exploration of topics we’re about to cover.”

Through technology integration, Wickson tries to teach students technology programs that will make their school work easier. One example of this is Gaggle, which is a safe learning tool online. It is a virus-free online storage for files.  This allows students to access school files from home. Gaggle also has e-mail for communication between students and teachers. It is one click communication with entire student body or selected groups. Gaggle also filters inappropriate language including drug and sexual references.

“I use Gaggle for my e-mail sometimes,” senior Alejandro Fierro said. “It’s cool, I like it.”

Gaggle features Digital Lockers that can help students access any files from home. Freshman Elora Johnson said Gaggle’s Digital Lockers helped her finish a PowerPoint project.

“The Internet is a lot easier to access,” Johnson said. “With a book, you’d have to flip through a lot of pages, but on the Internet, it’s all right there.”

Sims uses Gaggle in her biology classes.

“Gaggle allows for students to be connected,” Sims said. “It also allows for students to take things home with them.”

Another helpful tool is Google Docs, which according to Wickson is “great for editing a paper at the same time as someone else.” With Google Docs, two people can access a project and edit it together from separate locations. Wickson said students need their own user name and password for Google Docs.

“I wish kids would use Google Docs,” Wickson said. “You can have students on a group project, and all students could work on it at different times and end up with one paper. It’s really cool and it’s free.”

Moodle is another program which offers classroom extensions. After logging in with a school user name and password, students can enroll in the classes they are currently taking. The students must receive an enrollment key from the teacher, which is only needed one time.

“I use Moodle for biology,” freshman Raquel Rivera said. “We use it for assignments. Today we used it to study passing genetics to offspring.”

A bookmark tool which is helpful for students is Diigo, which provides tools to help web browsing research. It allows students to not only bookmark web pages, but highlight portions of the web page. Students can also add sticky notes to the web page. Students need to log in to Diigo using a user name and password. Diigo saves all bookmarks, highlights and sticky notes so it is accessable from any web browser.

Another safe way for classes to connect and collaborate with each other is through Edmodo.

“The cool thing about Edmodo is you can use it to talk to your teachers,” Wickson said. “It’s made to look a lot like Facebook. You can post on here, use it for resources. You can post to all students in a class, or just a teacher, but you can’t post to individuals.”

Atomic Learning is another new site that will be available to students after the first of January.

“Atomic Learning is a site that you can go to for technology training,” Wickson said. “There are short videos on technology programs that teach you how to use them.”

English classes are now using My Access. Students can type essays into My Access and get immediate scoring results based on grammatical error and structure.

“I think it’s a good thing,” Wickson said. “Students like immediate feedback, and it gives them that.”

Students also have access to a cart of iPads and iPod touches, which are a way to get on the Internet for school-related research or projects.

“On a regular basis, all four of our laptop carts are checked out,” Wickson said. “The iPads and iPod touches are ways to get on the Internet if you don’t have access to the laptop carts, and they’re cheaper.”

iPods and iPads also offer school-related apps that can be used in a classroom.

“The apps on the iPods and iPads are so engaging,” Wickson said. “We have an app called Quizlet that has flashcard memory. It already has a ton [of flashcards] made. You make the flashcards online at quizlet.com, then you get the app. When you log in, all of your flashcards are there and you can use them to study.”

Even though school technology is made to help students, Wickson said technology will receive a cut in the budget in the years to come. Although technology is advancing, not all people are accepting it.

“I think that some of the problems students have is that we may not embrace technology as much as other campuses do,” Wickson said. “I think that teachers are going to have to approach technology better. I think we’re a little bit behind. We’re catching up, though.”

The reasons people are not accepting technology may come from the problems that occasionally come with technology.

“There are a lot of frustrations with technology,” Wickson said. “Anytime you use anything new, it’s going to have glitches, or just anything that goes wrong. When it works, it’s awesome.”

Wickson hopes staff and students can learn to embrace technology more.

“I love my job. It’s really fun and technology is something I feel really strongly about,” Wickson said. “I think we’re doing a good job at catching up, but obviously everyone can do better.”

Even with all the advances in technology, nothing is ever perfect as Wickson can attest to.

“Technology is my best friend and my worst enemy,” Wickson said. “That’s true for a lot of things.”