As a student of the first four-year senior class at Empire High School, I have seen first hand how personal technology and classroom technology changes the way my school functions. I have also seen how technology is constantly being updated, as well as other technology being outdated. Going to high school during this era of technological expansion is an adventure. Having to keep up with these updates at school and in my personal life was the real challenge.

When I started high school, my laptop was a new technology for me, as well as my classmates. There were so many things to do with what we had, and yet we couldn't make up our minds about what to do. We had StudyWiz, for our homework and our assignments, which was good for the time, but needed updating, much like personal technology.

At that time, I was stuck with a CD player. This was archaic technology, considering the iPod-crazed world we live in now. By sophomore year, I started noticing that iPods were everywhere. I was still stuck with my trusty CD player, as well as StudyWiz. Sophomore year was when my teachers started using TurnItIn.com. To me, this was better than anything I had used before, because it had discussion boards, which was almost as good as talking to me peers, but I got credit for it!

By junior year, I was ready to throw away my CD player and go digital. I decided to jump on the iPod bandwagon. Around the same time that I was upgrading my technology, so was the school. Instead of using StudyWiz, we started using blogs. To me, blogging wasn't anything new, so I loved it. It made me feel like school was becoming part of my personal life, which couldn't have been any better.

Now that I am finally graduating, the technology that I saw emerge as a junior is virtually unchanged. The only difference is that now I have more freedoms with the technology. I have taken my personal experiences and my school experiences and blended them into one big experience that I know will help me as I expand my horizons into college and the rest of my life.

Nathan Rosen
Senior, Empire High School