The Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept that entails connecting a device to the Internet and other connected devices. It is a giant network of things and people that collect and share data. The possibilities are virtually endless. IoT specifically interests me because I currently work in mobile wireless and networking technologies.

Ubiquitous learning allows us to learn and share whenever and wherever we want. No topic is off limits to research and there is no age requirement for learning. In terms of higher education, use of the IoT would lead to “changes in educational technology, reform the education, change in teaching, change in learning, management of change, experimental and practical changes, changes in campus, teaching resources changes and others” (Aldowah, et al, pg. 5).

A real world example of this could look like a surgical student using a surgical simulator (VR, AR, etc.) to practice a procedure without yet working with live patients. “A cost-effective IoT learning environment for the training and assessment of surgical technical skills” can be used not only for education, but also to provide the student with real time feedback (Castillo-Segura, et al, pg. 1). An additional step further could even provide the professor/instructor with that feedback to allow them to make changes to a learning plan or curriculum to better suit the needs of individual students (or a class as a whole). The feedback can also provide very specific details about the simulation. There are sensors that can be placed on the student that he used to measure certain variables related to the actions of the trainee while performing the exercises. These variables include “aspects related to the general skill of the surgeon, such as the position of the surgeon’s hands, movements with surgical instruments, or the force applied to certain tissues” (ibid, pg. 2).

Furthermore, because the student has the advantage of ubiquitous learning, they can access the simulators outside of classroom hours for additional practice and also have access to online texts or lectures simultaneously that will supplement the learning activities. Though these scenarios revolve around the medical field, the IoT can be applied to many other fields of education (archeology, biology, botany, etc.).

I’m interested in hearing if any of you have experience with IoT in your learning and education history. Please feel free to share your thoughts.

Resources:

Aldowah, H., Ul Rehman, S., Ghazal, S., & Naufal Umar, I. (2017). Internet of things in higher education: A study on future learning. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 892, 012017. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/892/1/012017

Castillo-Segura, P., Fernández-Panadero, C., Alario-Hoyos, C., Muñoz-Merino, P. J., & Delgado Kloos, C. (2021). A cost-effective IOT learning environment for the training and assessment of surgical technical skills with visual learning analytics. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 124, 103952. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbi.2021.103952