Abstract:

In education, ecosystems can be defined as the full variety of actors and all non-living elements used for education through teaching and learning. The non-living elements consists of available material means and they influence the nature of interaction of populations which are connected through networks. In our paper we present tools organized in an IT framework, which can support the interaction between elements of such ecosystem by improving the location and navigation procedures in the educational process. Our solution consists of hardware devices – beacons, which broadcast signal used for identification of places and other elements of educational environment. The beacons network is integrated and managed by specialized content management system and mobile application that provide educational content, navigation inside buildings and can be used to evaluate the educational results. Exact location information and bidirectional mobile application communication enables better interaction between the participants of the educational course.

Our solution has been designed for all kinds of dispersed educational environments consisting of many elements (classrooms, external locations, tools, etc.), regardless of the type and level of education. The paper presents the examples of identified educational processes that can be improved by our beacons app framework as well as integration of our solution with popular e-learning solutions.

Keywords:

Beacon, classroom navigation, indoor navigation, automatic delivery of educational content, mobility.