Page 19 - THE Journal, March 2017

How will the more than 24 billion connected devices projected by the beginning of the next decade — that’s more than three for every human on the planet — affect school networks? And how can districts prepare for them?
BY JOSHUA BOLKAN
WEARABLE DEVICES AND the Internet of Things (IoT) are set to explode in the coming years, reaching $1.29 trillion in spending by 2020, according to a recent forecast from market research firm International Data Corp. (IDC).
That same IDC forecast predicted spending of about $747 billion in 2016 once all the tallies are in, and a recent survey from market researcher Gartner suggested that users don’t find wearable devices, at least in their most common forms of smartwatches and fitness trackers, particularly useful. So it might seem reasonable to assume that all the hype around wearables and connected things will never amount to much in the classroom.
Ron Reyer, director of technology at Bethel Park School District (PA), said that, aside from a student who wanted to connect a blood glucose monitor to the school network and a couple of teacher-owned devices such as Chromecasts and Amazon Fire Sticks, he hasn’t seen much impact on his district’s network yet.
But “Chromecasts and Amazon Fire TV Sticks and blood glucose monitors are just the tip of the iceberg,” Reyer said. “What’s coming down the pike is so much more exciting, like Raspberry Pis and Arduinos with network connectivity so that students can create projects and host mini websites that allow remotely controlled actions for projects that their peers and classmates can play with and experi- ment with from either inside or potentially even outside the network with proper security.”
Norton Gusky, a member of the Consortium for School Networking’s (CoSN) emerging technol-
ogy committee, pointed to Kylie Peppler’s work as
a compelling example of wearables in education. Peppler, an associate professor of learning sciences at Indiana University Bloomington, hosts workshops for students using conductive thread, LilyPad Arduinos
and LEDs, among other materials, to create e-textiles. “It’s a really neat combination of computational
thinking and wearable technology, and the kids
love it,” Gusky said. “The research that Kylie has done has shown that this approach really works well breaking down the gender barrier, especially at the middle-school level,” where girls often don’t get or participate in as many opportunities.
The Tustin Unified School District (CA)
began experimenting with wearables more than a year ago, using Google virtual reality devices in classes from language arts to science. The district is looking to expand those efforts, with a larger adoption of Google Cardboard planned.
Robert Craven, chief technology officer at Tustin USD, said some teachers in his district have tried to integrate smartwatches, but the number
of students bringing the devices to school seems
to have plateaued a bit after an initial surge in
the first year or two after they debuted. Fitness trackers, such as Fitbits, however, “seem to be taking off,” according to Craven, “so I think we’ll start looking at how to integrate those further into the curriculum.”
Craven also said he imagines a day when teachers come to class with wearable headsets that deliver biometric feedback on individual students to aid in delivery of personalized instruction.
“I think we’re probably five years or more away from that becoming a reality, but I do envision
a point in time where students are wearing their watch and that information’s being fed into some sort of database the district is using to provide that teacher real-time feedback on their students” and being able to see that “the anxiety has spiked up on this kid coming into class or their biometrics are slightly different today and you go and talk to that student and see why that is.”
MARCH 2017 | 19
FEATURE | IoT
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