By Keith Lawrence

The days of students sitting in rows of desks that face a teacher and a chalkboard are slowly coming to an end as smartboards replace chalkboards.

And Owensboro Public Schools is looking for the best classroom model for the future.

On Tuesday, the school system announced $357,988 in iGrants — grants for innovative ideas — to six schools.

Most of the money will go toward reconfiguring classrooms for a more personalized learning environment, Superintendent Nick Brake said.

"We want to try it in a few classrooms to see what works best before we do it districtwide," he said.

The media centers — what used to be called libraries — of the future will likely look more like Starbucks than the libraries of yesterday, Brake said.

Some high schools already serve coffee in their media centers, he said.

Last year, the school board earmarked $1 million for grants to "study, implement and scale innovative practices across the district."

The first half of that money has now been awarded.

The current round of grants includes:

• Sutton Elementary School, $25,500 to "create personalized learning environments to accelerate students through the use of technology."

• Estes Elementary School, $54,058 to develop an "elementary pilot program for STEM (science, technology, engineering, math)-focused Project Lead the Way and the redesigning of classrooms to better engage and meet the needs of individual students."

• Foust Elementary School, $44,480 for the development of "a more personalized approach to teaching math using multiple methods to meet the needs of individual students and for the purchasing of more user-friendly technology to better motivate and engage students."

• Owensboro Middle School South, $121,600 for redesigning the media center and "reconfiguring classrooms to create a student-centered environment that will focus on project-based learning."

• Owensboro Middle School North, $99,850 for "redesigning the media center, reconfiguring classrooms and using applications and simulations to create a more engaging science lab."

• Owensboro High School, $12,500 for developing an indoor/outdoor wellness curriculum using cycling for students.

Brake said the OHS project involves both stationary indoor bikes and regular bikes for outdoor use.

"We don't get many proposals for physical education," he said. "Owensboro is a bike-friendly town. I'd like to see more students biking."

Most of the projects, Brake said, involve "a good bit of technology."

Classrooms of the future, he said, will involve more individual student learning and more project work rather than lectures.

Students are taking more control and responsibility for their learning, Brake said.

The iGrants have one more year — and $500,000 — more to go.