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How Steve Jobs Transformed The Classroom

BURLINGTON (CBS) - At Burlington High School, Steve Jobs' legacy is living on. The school bought more than a thousand iPads for its students and teachers this year. It was Principal Patrick Larkin's idea, to help incorporate technology in the classroom, and improve the learning process.

He says it's part of teaching citizenship. "If we're not teaching digital citizenship we're not teaching citizenship in the year 2011. So to put a mobile device in the hands of every student, what's more real world than that?"

Rick Landry, a senior, showed us how he uses his iPad. He says, "My favorite part of the iPad is the organization part of it. Last year I had a ton of binders, a ton of notebooks. This year I have everything right in here. It's really easy I can keep everything in one place, and it helps with my productivity I think."

WBZ-TV's Karen Anderson reports

Todd Whitten, a History teacher, invited us to see how he uses the iPad in his class. Mr Whitten says, "I think it's great, I love it. It's got a whole new dimension to what we're learning and it's allowing kids to interact with the larger world in ways that we never could have done before. "

What about distractions, like Facebook and Twitter? They're allowed at Burlington High School. Whitten says, "Far better for them to have me work with them to figure out how to not be on Facebook all the time, than get into a job and be on Facebook all the time and get fired. So we have a good opportunity to do some real world learning as we go along."

What about the cost? Larken says they bought the iPads instead of new textbooks. He says says schools need to rethink the tools they use.

"I don't think schools do a good job looking at what they spend money on traditionally. We spend the same money on the same things every year. We move things around and we're spending money a little differently like a reduce on traditional textbooks and that saves us a little money right there."

Students and teachers says Steve Jobs' passing is an enormous loss. "I was sad because I always greatly admired him. I always think of him as the greatest innovator of our time. I always liked watching his keynote addresses."

Rick says the iPad is a perfect of example of how Jobs made "very complicated technology things seem much simpler."

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