By Lookout Staff

August 31, 2010 -- Forget laptops. They're old hat. And no need to blurt out an answer. It can be projected. And that blackboard just turned into three walls filled with multiple images and high-definition video clips.

It's all part of the classroom of future, and it's happening right now at Santa Monica College's $250,000 Digital Learning Studio that opened Monday, the first day of the fall semester.

Modeled after "The Hyperstruction Studio" at the University of California at Riverside, the new digital classroom is funded by a federal Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions Program grant.

"It's mind blowing," said Regina Jennings, project manager for the grant. "We're using a fast, visual and exciting means of teaching that seeks to duplicate the way that students communicate today."

The studio not only replaces pens, paper and even laptops with iPads, it also features SMART interactive whiteboards and Response clickers, high-definition video and furniture on wheels that allows students to cluster as groups in different configurations.

The classroom is spurring faculty to try novel ways of teaching that engages students, especially those with only basic skills, school officials said.

"The Digital Learning Studio allows the instructors to interact in a fluid way, but also allows students to interact with the lesson plans in individual and collaborative ways," said Al DeSalles,

manager of media and reprographic services, who has spearheaded the project with Jennings.

The professors in the classroom have each been given an iPad, and there is also one shared by groups of four students to make learning more collaborative, DeSalles said.

Ten classes have been scheduled in the 32-seat studio, including basic skills math, intermediate algebra, basic skills English and several communication courses.

SMC -- where Asian American, Native American, and Pacific Islander students make up 15 percent of the student body -- qualified for the grant, which is given to schools where at least 10 percent of the students meet that guideline, Jennings said.

Information about the Digital Learning Studio is available at www.smc.edu/dls.