Apple Education Profiles – Burlington High School

The iPad one-to-one program uses technology that’s already a big part of students’ lives to make them more excited about learning.

The inspiration
Located about 20 minutes outside Boston, Burlington High School is a public school in a middle-class suburban community. Its student body of about one thousand 9th-12th graders has performed well by traditional standards. With a 100 percent pass rate on the state examination and 95 percent of graduates going on to college, it appeared that Burlington had no need for change.

But the progressive-minded faculty felt they weren’t doing enough by just helping students perform well on tests. They wanted to adapt their teaching methods to an increasingly digital world, to help their students better prepare for real life.

The educators at Burlington recognized that students get most of their information from the Internet. “So students need teachers more than ever, ” says former principal Patrick Larkin. “We need to guide them in determining what is a valid source and what is not.” By incorporating digital literacy standards into the curriculum, the goal was to create a teaching environment using the same technology that students were already using outside school.
“iPad has allowed me to be so much more creative than I ever could have been before. It’s reenergizing for me to walk into a room with boundless possibilities.”
— Todd Whitten, history teacher,