Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO) is excited to share Sara Willner-Giwerc, Chris Rogers, and Kristen Wendell of Tufts University just had a paper published in the International Journal of Design for Learning, “The Symbiotics System: Designing an Internet of Things Platform for Elementary School Students”.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is any system where devices can communicate wirelessly with one another through the internet. IoT is becoming integrated into everyday technologies, like smartwatches tracking someone’s daily steps, but there are few products that can teach young children about the functionality and significance of IoT systems. As such, Sara Willner-Giwerc, Chris Rogers, and Kristen Wendell of Tufts University attempted to design and prototype an IoT platform for elementary school-aged students. Their goals were to create an IoT platform that can provide a meaningful learning experience, and to test and evaluate the prototype (SymbIOTics) in a real elementary school classroom. In creating this platform, the researchers had to consider some design constraints regarding affordability, increasing creativity, and accessibility. Willner-Giwerc, Rogers, and Wendell designed two activities for students in second-grade classrooms to participate in, to test the feasibility of using IoT technology in classrooms. The first activity proved that the SymbIOTics platform was viable for use in elementary school classrooms and that IoT could be feasibly introduced in classrooms. The second activity indicated that students were able to use the SymbIOTics interface correctly. In expanding the use of IoT in classrooms, there are a few barriers that need to be addressed, like strong cellular network signals, finding ways to simplify systems so that students of all backgrounds can use IoT systems, and having enough computers for students to run the systems. The next steps for SymbIOTics are to have a more intuitive interface that can be used on tablets and to allow for use without needing specific apps.
