Should schools invest in IoT technology to enhance teaching effectiveness and student learning outcomes?
Preceding the gale-force rise of artificial intelligence was a widely publicized, but lesser-known development, the Internet of Things (IoT). In short, it employs the use of high-speed, low-latency networks such as 5G or its successors to power connectivity, permitting fiction-like operations such as remote surgery, smarthome systems, to agricultural monitoring. Among these, education is one of the sectors which garner the most attention due to the wide range of applicable features in teaching and learning. There are calls for schools and universities to make a radical shift to utilize this IoT by allocating more resources to it; but is it truly worth it?
One obvious educational benefit of the IoT is its inherent paramount importance in powering the deep-learning mechanism of AI. And this is without mentioning the fact that the mere existence of AI would be impossible without the revolution brought about by the IoT. Teachers can employ these tools to track students’ data and devise the optimum lesson plan catering to the students’ capacities and the lesson’s content. Instead of lengthy lectures, instructors are now making use of gamification platforms like Quizzes in order to foster a more interactive learning environment. It is in human nature to favor play over study, hence a promising prospect for such the deployment of such system in class. Students could enjoy a more tailor-made pathway as curriculum developers take advantage of the collected data to devise a more comprehensive strategy to meet the specific needs of individual students. To illustrate, some students overperform under pressure while others are not endowed with such a gift, developers could exploit this to create an environment which is partly competitive, while neutral in certain assessment aspects in order that the students need not confront their examination anxiety.
While it seems reasonable to make investments in this state-of-the-art system, it could do us great disservice if improperly employed. The IoT and generative AI are touted as our helpful aides, but over-reliance on these platforms poses profound questions on the extent to which we should exploit them. Granted, gathering data and answering questions are two of their primary strengths, but we should be aware that education is a highly intricate and fragile undertaking that encompasses many human characteristics, which is unfathomable to machines. Systems could collect data on a student’s in-class performance such as his GPA or behavior, but not his background or personal circumstances. Insufficiency of investigation and over-reliance on such system breed complacency from the side of educators, who could overly entrust their tasks to AI and the IoT and believe them to be the panacea to every situations while failing to perceive the more humane side of education.
The emergence of the IoT and AI as a tool offers unprecedented benefits to educators and students alike owing to significant shift to a less theoretically intensive classroom and more efficient strategy devising. But schools should err not the side of caution in order not to spark over-reliance such technological wonders and negligence from the side of educators.
