Sciernce & Engineering | News

NI Updates Programming Environment for High School STEM Courses

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 06/22/11

National Instruments has updated its graphical drag and drop programming environment specifically for use in K-12 science and engineering classes. The latest edition of NI LabVIEW for Education integrates with classroom data collection and control devices to help teach concepts in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

The new high school edition of LabVIEW integrates with the company's myDAQ portable data-logging device, Vernier sensors, and LEGO Education robotics platforms. A vision module helps students use USB cameras for image manipulation and motion tracking.

The software is a full edition of the industrial and higher education version of LabVIEW that's "skinned" and scoped for younger users. It's accompanied by instructional videos, tutorials, open-ended challenges, and teaching resources such as lesson plans for high school use, available on the K12lab Web site, hosted by National Instruments.

"One of the biggest challenges for teaching physics, math--everything within STEM--is to make content more relevant, more meaningful to students, and to inspire them to want to apply it in their own lives," said John Sperry, an engineering teacher at Anderson High School in Austin, TX. "LabVIEW gives me the freedom to creatively inspire my students with authentic, real-world projects while using traditional lab equipment. The software's visual environment is easy for beginning students to understand, but also offers a very high skill ceiling so students can reach their full potential with the same technology that professionals use."

The LabVIEW Education Edition is priced at $1,499 for a school-wide perpetual license; a single-seat license is $129.

Editor's note: This article has been modified since its original publication to correct a factual error. The 25-seat license should have been listed at $1,499; the single-seat license was supposed to have been listed at $129. We also incorrectly listed those as annual licenses rather than perpetual licenses (based on old information). [Last updated June 23, 2011 at 3:54 p.m.] --David Nagel