Hi Judith,

In the previous post (link: post is in Dutch) I told you that currently five teams of students are working on an IoT for learning activities proof of concept. IoT, for those who don’t know, stands for Internet of Things. With smart sensors, existing data-indicators and controllers, environments are being monitored and possibly influenced as smart as possible. In the course we are running now three different cases are presented: “Assisting elderly and their care-takers in living longer in their own home by IoT”, “Management of spaces, energy, costst of large (school)buildings”, and “LA4LD IoT”.

I am involved in all the groups but as a customer specially involved in the LA4LD IoT solution. Students should present to me a proof of concept that is applicable at Zuyd or the student’s home at the end of the course. I have five teams of students working for my assignment and I am very pleased by their enthusiasm and ideas. Students are in the proposal phase of the projects and after the holiday they have to build their proof of concept with IoT gadgets and tooling. At the HBO-ICT they don’t have to solder but can use solutions like the raspberry PI, Z-Wave or other domotica sets commercially available. They have to learn using, adapting and implementing them in the environment of the customer and then find a smart way to cope with the data or visualize the data according to the wishes of the client.

In my case they have to take into consideration that the things I want to have measured are either needed to improve the learning activities for all students or the learning process of an individual student. Some of them even embrace research and solutions of environmental control (i.e. a room with a specific kind of temperature is most suited for learning efficiency). I’d like to give you a first glimpse of the ideas of two of the five groups.

Remember I specifically asked for a proof of concept that would be implementable in one or more rooms at Zuyd University before 1-9-2018.

Table 1. Idea: IoT in higher education

In the first example a classroom setting is chosen. The actions and possibilities are described in Dutch but the idea is clear. Fun part is that they have chosen to implement a Bluetooth beacon and that I had to stop them in multiple occasions, because they were coming up with ideas to use that Beacon to improve the interactive experience in the classroom. Great examples and definitely worth further exploring, but in my case it is about getting information on the learning activities designed and the learning process at hand and trying to improve both by informing students and teachers.

Table 2. Idea: IoT in Higher Education workplace of a student

In the second example I got surprised by the students, because they took up the challenge of looking into the ‘private’ workspace of the student at home (or in a library). They came up with a desk-setting and a tooling (which name I shall not tell at this moment) that is portable and can be moved and set up anywhere.

Both groups have made a bigger presentation on what they are going to do with the data and how the data indicators relate to either learning activity design or the learning process.

The groups are half way their course and still have some time to work further on this. I already bought a Raspberry Pi, a Pi cam and some sensors (still have to be delivered) so that they actually can build a set up for me to use.

I hope that the students find a way to connect with the great research done on these topics. My colleague at the OU, Daniele di Mitri (http://hdl.handle.net/1820/7525 http://hdl.handle.net/1820/7951) and former colleagues Jan Schneider en Peter van Rosmalen (http://hdl.handle.net/1820/5571) have done several experiments on sensors, multi-modality and learning. Not always to get a broader picture of the design of the learning activity (sometimes on the learning process or learning experience) but worth of reading and using. Let’s see if some of them read this blog ;).

In my LA4LD project these are the first steps in this area. As we have a lector smart devices and a lector Internet of Everything at Zuyd there are a lot more steps to take. I am looking forward to tell you about them.

With kind regards,

Marcel Schmitz