How IoT will change Schools
Just as the IoT is shaping the future of homes, sports, and music, IoT is going to literally shape the future it self! (…Because the children are the future…Queue the 1985 song ‘We are the World’) Schools will be managed in a whole new way.
IoT is making a big impact on managing the school building itself. Using Cisco’s Physical Access Gateway schools are now able to remotely control the opening/closing/unlocking/locking of thousands of doors of the school buildings. This makes managing who can get in the building much simpler for school officials.
Five schools in Toledo, Ohio, USA are saving $128,000 USD annually after connecting their schools to the internet! According to the district “the control systems in the buildings [are] integrated into one web-based system to allow the district to monitor and analyze the facilities energy usage.” The school was able to take that information and make adjustments to the energy usage to save money! The savings are allowing them to keep programs around despite budget cuts. In a way, the Internet of Things is saving schools!
On top of ‘saving’ schools, the Internet of Things can help teachers take attendance and help students with learning disabilities. The Nymi band is a wearable “smart band” that uses HeartID technology to authenticate who the wearer is. Attendance could be taken as students walk into the class while wearing the Nymi band. The band would send a signal to the computer telling it who the student is, and the computer would mark the student as present.
Students with ADHD normally work with a para-educator once or twice a week to work on their focus one student at a time. But with Cortechs new technologies, students can work on their focus at anytime. Cortechs has developed a brainwave-sensing headset that connects via bluetooth to a mobile game that helps children with ADHD learn to focus. The game measures, monitors, and responds to the attention and relaxation levels of the player’s brainwaves. So, instead of being limited to helping one child at a time, hundreds of children with ADHD can be helped at once.
Not only can IoT make learning more efficient, it can also literally be used as a learning tool in the classroom. The Internet of School Things is working with 8 schools in the UK to incorporate IoT into their learning. Schools can purchase a weather kit, soil kit, and/or a robotug kit. The weather kit allows students to see current data on weather and compare it to historic trends. The robotug kit encourages students to build robots and then test which robot pulled the hardest. The coolest one by far is the soil kit! It lets the students build a sensor that can measure the light, temperature, and soil moisture. The kit presents the data to the students and the students can use it to explore when, why, and how plants grow the best.
Those are all just a few examples of what the IoT can currently do to help improve schools! There are so many more possibilities that it would be better suited for a book than a blog post! There will be even more to come in the future as programs at University of Wisconsin at Madison (UW Madison) and DISTANCE, the UK education consortium that funds The Internet of School Things, research further ways that IoT can help improve schools.
At UW Madison, the school has opened an IoT lab where students can explore, research, and develop new products and applications for the IoT. When students are learning about IoT and have access to hands on experimentation, new and exciting developments are sure to follow. Overall, not only is IoT saving schools, helping students, and taking attendance; IoT is opening new fields of study in universities.
Here at Things.IO, we can help schools by helping you. We are a Cloud solution for companies that want to build cool new things and connect it to the internet. If you have a product that by connecting it to the internet it could improve schools or other sectors make an account here or contact us here.
