Dive Brief:
- A University of Southern California project using cameras and sensors to gather analytical data about student engagement and the intersections of teaching and learning is just one of a growing number of initiatives on campuses nationwide to harness the Internet of Things (IoT) to improve outcomes and create innovation within the burgeoning tech sector, Ed Tech: Focus on Higher Ed reported.
- Schools including Case Western University and Carnegie Mellon University are using IoT to develop innovative ideas, including measuring energy produced by people and machinery, and apps that can be helpful in specific surroundings as a way to improve the campus experience.
- Syracuse University has been researching machine-to-machine communication for more than a decade, and officials there say the work is a platform for higher education to pioneer technology that can make work and data processing faster and more efficient.
Dive Insight:
With the amount of people and the concentration of technical expertise present on college campuses, IoT is becoming a central element of STEM learning and training in higher education. Along with Artificial Intelligence, research in these areas will inspire the next generation of government and commercial development ideas, along with creating new sectors in the critical technical workforce.
Regardless of institutional mission, college academic leaders will seek to find ways in which all majors can participate in harnessing the IoT to serve as a complementary asset to learning and research. In the liberal arts, this can be infused within archiving and preservation initiatives. In social services, IoT can be useful for mapping statistics on vulnerable populations, crime and public health data. The possibilities are endless across higher education, but only await direction from college leaders to begin implementing the ideas.
