Here at CAM, the changes have been dramatic.  Instead of the old card system for dispensing materials, we now use an automated system, DRAGON.  Our students now find our own materials on the system, they also have access to the materials of the library system consortia of 150 libraries and to the university libraries in the state of Illinois through both DRAGON and Illinet Online.   Several other online resources are also made available to our students through the library budget and through the state of Illinois, such as EBSCOHOST, FirstSearch, Novelist, SIRS, NewsBank Illinois and Britannica Online.

The philosophy of CAM High School and the media center is to prepare our students for the world and for life after high school.  Integrating technology into the school curriculum and into the library has become mandatory for the implementation of our school philosophy.  Through a collaborative effect between teachers and the library, the students are given the opportunity to broaden their life skills.  Students are required, from their freshman year in high school, to use many areas of technology (hardware, software and the internet) to acquire primary and secondary sources of information for a variety of areas of the curriculum.  They are taught the skills of search and request, are given the responsibility of requesting and acquiring the information, and then they are required to synthesize the information into various formats: written report, power-point presentation, web-based display, e-mail interactive, or generational interaction.

Therefore, it could be said that the curriculum of the teachers demands that the students learn, know and utilize life skills that will carry them into whatever part of the world they decide to journey after high school.  These skills are considered life skills because they use the same criteria for every area of life.  The skills are taught using the Big6 problem-solving model.