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"At Burlington High School in Burlington, MA, we are entering our eighth month of a 1:1 iPad initiative that began in September 2011. Don't get me wrong, we think the iPad is a great device for learning and gives each of our students a dynamic learning tool that can be used across the content areas and to accomplish a variety of tasks. Many of the critics claim that we are backing our students into a corner by giving them one brand and one skill set to learn exclusively on one device. This is not the case at Burlington. Furthermore, I have support. "

"Patrick Larkin, Assistant Superintendent for Learning, Burlington Public School District, Burlington, Ma, recalls a question someone posed to him: "Is the tablet an education solution, or an education problem?" His answer, and common sense approach to changing the school and learning environment is a professional development lesson for all. Enjoy my interview with Patrick Larkin, and learn why he's become one of the most respected tablet education voices today-and for the future."

"For the Burlington, MA Public Schools (BPS), the district's 1:1 iPad initiative isn't so much about the devices as it is about changing the classroom environment and creating more hands on learning opportunities. The focus behind the technology is the same as it's always been: good teaching practices. The only change is the workflow."

"When we started our 1:1 planning in Burlington more than five years ago, the first thing we did was involve our students on the planning team. The input of our students helped put so many things in perspective for the planning team and saved us time and money. We saved time because instead of speculating about what students may or may not do with new mobile devices they would be receiving, we had students tell us firsthand what to expect. They saved us money because when we were talking about which case we should by for each of the more than 1,000 iPads that we would be purchasing, one of the students told us not to by cases. He told us that the students would take them off and buy their own cases and that we would be wasting our money."

"So it's time to look at the feedback from 177 of our students who responded on our brief end-of-the-year survey asking about some of their impressions after a year of 1:1 with iPads. For today, I would like to focus on the responses to the three questions below:"

"As we approach the end of the school year, I have been looking back at some of the topics I have written about this year. One of the most popular topics (which I wrote about back in September) was homework. "

""The technology used to be hard and that has changed, but the teaching is hard and it will always be hard.""