The Internet of Things, or smart technology, covers everyday physical objects that are able to connect to the Internet or other network structures in order to exchange data.
According to Gartner over 6 billion connected “things” will be in use this year and over 20 billion by 2020. Therefore in today's part of our ongoing series we will take a look at the impact of the Internet of Things in Education.
[member]Smart “everything”
To get a grasp of the possibilities of IoT in education we need to start with the premise that essentially every physical object has the potential to become a member of the Internet of Things. The question if every object should be smart is on another page.
Over the past years we have seen lots of novelties in the IoT space with more or less educational functions, especially in the health and quantified self sector. There are connected toothbrushes that teach us oral hygiene, devices that teach us to sit correctly and connected spoons that teach us how to eat correctly and inform us on our calorie intake.
Smart Pens
A German startup was among the first to enter the smart pen market in 2013. Lernstift worked on a pen that would correct spelling and writing. Unfortunately, the startup burned through its crowdsourced funding before any prototype was sent out to its backers. Yet, the concept was and still is promising.
Another smart pen targeting the education sector is Scanmarker. Like the product name suggests, the pen works like a digital highlighter, scanning text and making it available for use in all sorts of digital documents.
As a third example for smart pens we have Livescribe. Their device is built around a voice recording function that ties written notes to the recording of a lecture. The app also helps learners to organize, tag and search the texts.
Smart Whiteboards
Smart or interactive whiteboards made their first entrance into classrooms about 15 years ago, yet their impact on educational outcomes has been reviewed with mixed results. While some companies like Time To Know have created entire ecosystems around those devices, most teachers are left with a more or less clever device that tends to end up as nothing more than an expensive blackboard. Besides missing infrastructure a lack in teacher training options and funding is to blame here.
A newer, leaner version of the concept could, however, prove to be an essential part in the classroom. With prices starting at $169, interactive whiteboards are poised to make a comeback, powered by other connected devices in the classroom and more adapted educational content and data from the Internet.
Last year, Chinese gaming giant turned edtech company NetDragon acquired Promethean for $130 million, adding another technological platform to its growing portfolio which also includes augmented reality and holograms.
Smart Schools
The Internet of Things can also be applied to school buildings. Here the main fields of interest are cost savings and security.
IoT can be used to save energy, automatically regulating light, heat or air conditioning to create a better learning environment. Those use cases are similar to what we already know from smart home appliances like the Nest thermostat. There are also possibilities in controlling food waste, saving schools up to 4% of their annual food purchases.
Driven by the tragic school shootings, IoT can also play a role in making schools and universities a more secure place. From checking students at the entrance through NFC chips to cameras and sensors, schools will for sure ramp up their devices on that front.
Those devices can then also be used to monitor and prevent cheating. In China a school used drones to prevent students from cheating at the infamous college entrance exam Gaokao last year.
In our next article about the impact of technology in education we will take a closer look at a specific vertical in IoT, wearables.
[/member]Picture by Josh Allen via Flickr