If Patrick Larkin gets his way there won't be any end-of-year makeup days due to snow-related closures at Burlington High School in Massachusetts. With appropriate technology in the hands of all students, he thinks, they should be able to find out the assignments and communicate with teachers, snow or no snow!

Patrick Larkin is starting his fourth year as Principal at Burlington High and he is working hard to bring technology to the school. He wants people to get to the point where they understand that education doesn't just happen between 7:30 and 3:30. With technology, education can happen 24/7.

When Larkin first started as a principal he was not allowed to start a blog. But when the district's new superintendent came in 2008 a change in policy allowed school leaders to start blogs and increase the communication throughout the district with teachers, students, parents and school officials.

Cell phone use, banned during classroom time in most schools, is welcomed at Burlington High so students can provide feedback to teachers and participate in quizzes. Is Principal Larkin worried about cheating? "If they want to cheat, they're going to cheat," he says, "with technology or anything else." He doesn't see much difference between this and previous forms of cheating, such as note passing.

Larkin is working with the School Committee to establish a one-to-one laptop program for the 2011 school year. He believes the district can save money by using digital textbooks instead of regular textbooks. The school is looking into the cost of buying a large number of computers at a discount or helping the students purchase their own computers.

Source: Boston.com, Laptop Learning at Burlington High School