The Internet of Things. It sounds like something quite innocuous and unassuming. It will turn out to be anything but. It’s down to the sheer size of the thing. With the huge expansion of the internet that will come with 31 billion devices being added to the internet, the game is going to change entirely.
The interesting thing is that like with so many innovations, we can’t yet know everything that’s going to happen. If you don’t believe me in that regard, just consider the home computer. For a long time, it was a tool without a purpose, as people thought it was interesting but not really all that useful. Then spreadsheets came along. This revolutionized computers in particular as well as business as a whole.
Of course, that’s not all she wrote. Though we can’t make all the predictions and we’ll probably be caught by surprise in many areas, there are a lot of predictions we can make. It’s just important to realize that most of these only form the tip of the iceberg.
Data Collection
The obvious first change is how much more data will be available. This will matter to education in two big ways. The first is that there will be a lot more information available out there, which students can collect, analyze, play around with and come to understand. Though obviously, not all students will take advantage of this, those that do will be able to learn and understand things on their own that previously were out of reach.
In this way, they might be able to do such things as model climates and societies. Collect information on car usage, human behavior and social influences and so much more. For those who know what to do with that data, there will be opportunities to garner insights we can only dream about. Something that will naturally include the next Google and Facebook. After all, all that data will be out there. All they’ll need to figure out is how to use it advantageously.
The second big way in which it will impact education is how much we’ll know about in here. We’ll have so much more information about our students and what they’re up to, which will mean we can learn a great deal more about how they learn and how they don’t. This will revolutionize the way we teach, with us no longer needing to take things on faith but able to do concrete analyses of student (and teacher) behavior and the consequences thereof.
Data drive
Another big change is what the IoT will do to our economy and how schools will respond to that. With the huge deluge of information that’s coming, a lot of companies will be desperate for more people that can analyze it as well as build the tools to help other people analyze it.
This will obviously affect how our students are to be educated. After all, when there will be this much demand for kids to know how to work with numbers, then somebody is going to offer that supply. Hopefully, it will be our general education system (though it has adapted slowly in the past). What will certainly change, however, will be how certain high-quality institutions will adapt. These will offer new courses and new opportunities to the youth of those who can pay. These children will then take advantage of these new technologies to become the people who can pay in the future.
Data Analysis
Another big change that we will see is the development of new tools. In many ways, this is another example of the spreadsheet I listed above. The internet is adding so much data that many people are not sure how we’re going to be able to store and process it. That’s a problem crying out for solutions and many people are working really hard to do exactly that.
That means that over the next years and decades we’re going to see some new tools being developed which will be far better at processing huge amounts of information in ways that people who don’t have a natural gift for data analysis will be able to understand.
Naturally, one of the first groups who will take up these new tools will be the young. After all, they’re the people who are the most attracted to new technologies.
These new tools will be able to do new things, like realistic speech, write my thesis and behavioral analysis. Initially, I predict these tools might actually be used to undermine education, with unscrupulous students using them to get ahead, while universities and school play a desperate game of catch up.
After that, they will naturally be used to improve the educational process. This is already happening in part, with the IoT being used in some schools to monitor the environment and make sure that it’s at the right temperature. Of course, this is only the beginning. After all, we will no doubt find out many more things are affecting our students than we’re currently aware of “ with the analysis of the data revealing new opportunities and solutions.
Brick and mortar
Then there is what will happen to our physical institutions. Until now, brick and mortar schools have weathered the storm of this technological age quite effectively. Largely that’s down to the fact that certain activities, such as working together and being with other students, have been hard to overcome with technological tools.
With the internet of things that will change. Suddenly it will be possible for students to interact with each other and share content far more easily than they previously could. This will make it far easier for online and distance learning institutes to compete with those located in a physical space.
Naturally, this will have some serious implications for those brick and mortar schools. But it won’t end there. You see, right now how well-educated students depend on the countries they are in. After all, that’s where they’re taught.
As the online varieties become better and higher quality, however, that will become less true. Suddenly, the doors will open for children in other countries where the educational facilities are perhaps not as high-quality to simply attend school somewhere else without actually leaving their countries.
This is huge, for the simple reason that it will no longer just be within reach of the rich to educate their children abroad, but also that of the middle class. As a result, a new wave of highly skilled students will enter the market from less-developed countries. These students will compete for the same jobs as western students will “ thereby causing, even more, disruption to western countries.
Last words
The IoT is going to change how we teach, where we teach, what we teach and who we teach. This will have unforeseen ramifications that we can’t yet predict. That’s a big deal, for which we shouldn’t just prepare as teachers and teaching institutes, but even as governments and countries.
Because, even though some leaders might think they can protect the interests of their people by closing the borders, that’s a very difficult thing to do as long as information continues to flow freely.
