On Nov. 14, LaMoure principals Andrew DelaBarre (secondary) and Denise Musland (elementary) shared their experience and insight on bringing a SmartLab into their district with other South East Education Cooperative principals.
LaMoure, with access to an old, available ITD room, chose to bring a SmartLab to the district and use it with high school students in the mornings and elementary students in the afternoons on certain days of the week. All 7th and 8th grade students take the class and a credit is available for students 9-12 through the N.D. Center for Distance Education (NDCDE). LaMoure is 1:1 so all students use iPads for journaling, photo taking and creating a final presentation.
The SmartLab bring modules of categories ranging from building robots to animation to green screen broadcasting and more to your students. School facilitators are required to complete a two-day, hands-on training through the NDCDE to acquire the skills needed to set up and run the SmartLab and software, but students do the work on their own. Students must read about the project at hand, talk to other students, problem solve, take notes, show evidence and in the end create a presentation based on the process they've gone through.
Matthew Lonn, NDCDE, provided LaMoure its training and worked with the district to set up their lab. All needed materials, furniture, technology, etc. can be purchased through NDCDE. It also refreshes modules annually and helps to replace any broken pieces. LaMoure did choose to purchase its own furniture to create 12 pod workstations. CDE does offer a five-year payment plan.
So the questions on how to do this in your district are:
- How do you fund it?
- Where do you put it?
- How do you schedule it?
View a video created by LaMoure showing the great student work being done in their SmartLab.
If you’d like more information about NDCDE’s SmartLab, the programs available to individuals, school classes, or the possible partnering with NDCDE to make the SmartLab experience available to your school’s students, please don’t hesitate to contact Matthew Lonn at matthew.lonn@k12.nd.us or by phone at 701-298-4838.
