This paper reports on the lesson learned from setting up and running a course on smart spaces based ambient intelligence within a “postgraduate” degree in Information & Computer Science Engineering. The course consists of a lab module where students are asked to propose, develop and demonstrate simple smart environment applications. Specifically, the course is built around Smart-M3, the open source interoperability component of an open innovation platform developed within the European Project SOFIA (2009-11). This paper illustrates the above summarized course, presenting the design style and the application development flow specifically devised for the course, the students evaluation approach taken, the course achievements, the issues that still need to be handled, and it will envisage topics and further extensions.