IoT Educational Framework Case Study: Devices as Things for Hands-on Collaboration

As IoT continues to reshape industries and daily life, our research revolves around cultivating a generation of IoTliterate individuals capable of addressing today’s challenges. In the Internet of Things (IoT) education, it is crucial to provide students with the ability to work with the technology and apply it to real-world problems. This creates a demand for teaching methodologies compatible with newly explored networked learning activities, for example, Challenge-Based Education (CBE). This study explores the IoTempower Framework, a versatile pedagogical tool dedicated to enhancing IoT CBE education. Its open-source nature and teaching support make it accessible and adaptable for IoT courses that support hands-on learning and teaching practices. This paper investigates IoTempower Framework's educational applications by analyzing three higher-education study cases where it was deployed. It explores the framework with its associated devices as tools for experiential collective and critical learning. Through a survey of students and participatory observations, the paper evaluates the framework's impact on fostering collaborative engagement in project-driven courses. It introduces the concept of devices as social-material entities or design things and how this approach to device development can aid collaborative teaching and learning experiences. The paper underscores IoTempower Framework as a social-material tool that is significant in shaping effective IoT education by highlighting the interplay between technical and social aspects of its devices as pedagogical tools.