A Critical Overview of Internet of Things in Education


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Bakla A.

Mehmet Akif Ersoy Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi, no.49, pp.302-327, 2019 (Peer-Reviewed Journal)

Abstract

As a relatively new concept, Internet of things (IoT) is known to offer some potentials  for learning and teaching. Although this catchy term is becoming more and more popular in educational contexts, there is still need for clearing  up  the  minds  of  teachers  and  students  with respect  to  the  nature  of  it  and  how  it  could  be  used  for teaching  and  learning  purposes.  In  this  sense,  this  study aims to locate IoT in instruction and to provide a critical overview of it. It also makes a distinction between the use of  IoT  at  the  management  and  instructional  levels  in educational  contexts.  Today,  educators  seem  to  support the  use  of  IoT  in  education but  they  mostly  put  forward ideas  that  seem  to represent  the  use  of  IoT  from  an administrative  perspective,  leaving  little  space  for discussions centering on direct instructional potentials of IoT.  Therefore,  this  study  highlights  those  benefits  and discusses  problematic  issues,  particularly  with  respect  to access to digital devices and the Internet. It also attempts to  provide  a  modest  summary  of  recent  studies  focusing on the practical applications of IoT in educational settings. 

Keywords:  Internet  of  things  (IoT);  education, management, teaching and learning